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LETTERS 



TO THE 



RIGHT EEV. JOHN HUGHES, 

ROMAN CATHOLIC BISHOP OF NEW YORK. 



REVISED AND ENLARGED. 



BY K I R W A N. 




NEW YORK: 
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, 



FRANKLIN SQUARE. 



1855. 









Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand 
eight hundred and fifty -five, by 

Harper & Brothers, 

in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Southern District 
of New York. 



TO 



THE REV. ALEXANDER DUFF, D.D., LL.D., 

THE GREAT MISSIONARY OF SCOTLAND; THE APOSTLE OF IN- 
DIA ; THE LIVING MODEL OF AN APOSTOLICAL MINISTER ; 
WHOSE NAME AND WHOSE LABORS ARE THE 
COMMON PROPERTY OF THE 
CHURCH OF GOD, 

Ef^ls Uolume is Betrfcateti 

BYHISFRIEND, 

THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE TO HARPER'S EDITION. 



I SHOULD not feel otherwise than greatly thankful to 
G-od for the favor with which my letters to Bishop 
Hughes have been received by the Christian world, and 
by multitudes educated in the faith of Rome. Having 
gone through many and large editions in the United 
States ; having been republished in England, Scotland, 
Ireland, and the Canadas ; having been translated into 
the Grerman, French, and Spanish, and by American 
missionaries into some of the languages of India, they 
have been read in all countries where the human mind 
is in any adequate measure awake to the examination 
of the differences between the religion of the Bible and 
the religion of Rome. 

For a few years past they have been in the exclusive 
possession of the Board of Publication in Philadelphia, 
by which, through its religious and benevolent chan- 
nels, they have met with a vride circulation. Feeling 
that they were too much confined to such channels, 
and that they were almost excluded from the general 
book-trade, with the consent of that Board I have pre- 
pared the present edition. 

The Letters themselves have been revised, correct- 
ed, enlarged, and, I trust, improved. 

As the large editions of the address on ^' The Decline 
of Popery and its Causes" have been exhausted, and as 



Vi PREFACE TO HARPER's EDITION. 

it is now out of print, it has been added to the present 
volume. The PubHshers prefer meeting the demands 
for it in this way to reproducing it in its original form. 
Its facts and arguments are of permanent utility. 

This edition goes to the public when the whole coun- 
try is awake to the enormities of popery as to its 
claims, its doctrines, its policy, its practices, and when 
the grinding tyranny and atrocious selfishness of its 
bishops and priests are undergoing a thorough investi- 
gation. To help on this good work, a letter introduc- 
tory has been prefixed, to prove and to illustrate that 
" Romanism is not the Religion for America." And 
if the excited feeling of the country should, by any pos- 
sibility, assume a tinge of intolerance, it may be attrib- 
uted to the arrogance and bad conduct of the prelate 
to whom these letters are addressed more than to all 
other causes combined. He has utterly disregarded 
the advice of Norfolk to Buckingham, when roused by 
the intrigues of Wolsey, and is suffering the conse- 
quences : 

" Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot 
That it do singe yourself: we may outrun, 
By violent swiftness, that which we run at, 
And lose by over-running." 

KiRWAN. 

New York, May, 1855. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

TO THE FIRST SERIES. 



The pages that follow were written in the form of 
letters to Bishop Hughes, that they might readily gain 
the attention of those for whose benefit they are de- 
signed. The writer is a gentleman who has never 
taken any part in the Romish controversy, but having 
been educated in the Church of Rome by parents of 
that faith, and having remained in that communion 
until mature years and patient thought enabled him 
to judge for himself, he became calmly but decidedly 
convinced that he must leave it, and seek the religion 
of the Bible among Protestants. 

In these pages- — the result of his own experience 
and observation — he gives the reasons that compelled 
him to abandon the Church of his fathers, and the rea- 
sons why he can not return to her embrace. The let- 
ters are written with great courtesy, frankness, and 
ability, with the sprightly humor of an Irishman to an 
Irishman, and with an eloquence and earnestness that 
often remind us of some of the most celebrated passages 
from the Irish bar. They were first published in the 
Neio York Observer^ and were thence widely copied 
into other papers. They have been extensively sought 
for by Catholics who are beginning to inquire after the 
truth, and by others who wish to put them into the 
hands of those who are willing to read. 



VUl INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

The temper of the letters commends them to a can- 
did perusal, and the clearness of the argument and il- 
lustration will carry conviction to the minds of those 
who have the independence to decide for themselves 
by the light of the Bible and common sense. 

The letters were furnished to me under an injunc- 
tion of secresy as to the author's name ; and having 
been requested by many individuals and societies to 
give them to the public in a form for preservation and 
further circulation, it is proper to say that the writer's 
character is an abundant guarantee for the fidelity of 
all the matters of fact here stated, and that he is pre- 
pared to maintain them if they should ever be called 
in question. Samuel I. Prime. 



CONTENTS. 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 
Romanism is not the Religion for America Page 13 

LETTER L 
Introduction 37 

LETTER 11. 
Causes of early Misgivings, — Priestly Miracles. — Purgatory. — Pray- 
ing to Saints 42 

LETTER III. 

Causes of early Misgivings continued. — Confession. — Holy Wells. — 
Prohibiting the Bible. — An Incident 49 

LETTER IV. 

Transition from Popery to Infidelity. — Inquiry awakened. — Abstinence 
from Meats. — The Mass. — Confession. — Transubstantiation. — Reli- 
gion vanishes 61 

LETTER V. 

Popery makes the Masses superstitious, the intelligent Infidels. — Who 
go to Confession 1 — Ireland. — France. — Other countries. — Reasons 
why Popery debases. — The Days of Popery numbered 68 

LETTER VI. 

Popery has degraded Ireland. — Evidences of its Degradation. — Absen- 
teeism. — Sub-letting. — Tithes. — The Priest's cry for Money .... 75 

LETTER VII. 

Reasons for not returning to the Papal Church. — Prohibition of the 
Scriptures. — The Way and Manner of Papal Worship. — Ceremo- 
nial Law of Popery. — Obstructions raised between *God and the 
Soul 83 



X CONTENTS. 

LETTER VIII. 
Farther Reasons for not returning to the Papal Church. — CeUbacy of 
the Clergy. — Auricular Confessions. — A call on Irish Papists to as- 
sert their Rights Page 90 

LETTER IX. 
Reasons which prevent from returning to the Papal Church continued. 
— Purgatory. — Transubstantiation . . , 98 

LETTER X. 
Is the Church of Rome a Church of Christ 1 106 

LETTER XL 
The Effects of Popery on Liberty, Knowledge, Happiness, true Reli- 
gion 116 

LETTER XII. 
Conclusion of the whole matter .... 124 



SECOND SERIES. 

Introduction Page 135 

LETTER I. 
Reasons for this Second Series. — Why addressed to Bishop Hughes. 
— Evil days have come upon Popery 139 

LETTER II. 

Extreme Unction. — Its Meaning. — The way of administering it. — 
James, v., 14, 15. — It enriches the Church. — An Incident 146 

LETTER HI. 
The pretended Sacrament of Penance described. — No Scripture War- 
rant for it. — Its Absurdities. — A personal Inquiry 154 

LETTER IV. 
Miracles. — Milner's Vindication. — Many Examples. — Legends of the 
Saints. — A Miracle of my own working. — Why so few Miracles 
since the Reformation 163 



CONTENTS. Xi 

LETTER V. 

Marks of the Papal being the true Church considered. — Unity — Sancti- 
ty — Catholicity — Apostolicity — Infallibility Page 172 

LETTER VL 
Relics. — Relics the Parent of Miracles. — The Importance of Relics. 
— Specimens of Relics. — The Abuses of Relics. — Indulgences — To 
whom and by whom granted — Their fearful Effects 182 

LETTER VII. 

Unmeaningness of Romish Doctrines and Ceremonies. — Baptism. — 
The Mass. — Penance. — Extreme Unction. — Holy Water. — Prayers 
to the Saints. — Withholding the Scriptures 192 

LETTER VIIL 

The Destiny of the Papacy. — Its Growth. — Its History not yet writ- 
ten. — The Reformation. — Reasons for the Extinction of Popery : 
1. Incapable of Reformation; 2. Its Reformation impossible; 3. 
Opposed by the Intelligence of the World ; 4. By its Piety ; 5. 
The Causes which gave it Origin passing away ; 6. Its Extinction 
ordained ; 7. How it is to be done 202 

LETTER IX. 
To all, and especially to American, Roman Catholics 212 

LETTER X. 

Conclusion. — The Indian Devotee. — Faith in Christ saves. — The dy- 
ing Thief. — Peter at the Feast of Pentecost. — The Plan of Salva- 
tion. — The Gospel and Papal Way of Salvation contrasted. — A Call 
upon Irish Roman Catholics 221 



THIRD SERIES. 

Introductory Note Page 233 

LETTER I. 
Introduction. — Free Discussion important. — Bishop Hughes com- 
mencing answering before reading Kirwan. — Excuse for the Charge 
of Insincerity — Other Accounts settled. — Controversy on Roman- 
ism among the People. — Object of these Letters 235 

A2 



Xll CONTENTS. 

LETTER II. 

Bishop Hughes's Letters characterized. — Coolness of their State- 
ments. — Their Argument one enforcing Despotism. — The Princi- 
ple that the Bible has no Authority but what the Church gives it, 
and that it must be understood as the Church interprets it, exam- 
ined Page 244 

LETTER III. 
Examination of Church Interpretation continued 253 

LETTER IV. 

Examination of Church Interpretation continued. — Its destructive 
Consequences. — It is a monstrous Assumption 261 

LETTER V. 

The Papal Church Theory. — A Mistake in selecting Peter for the Ti- 
ara. — The Prayer of Christ for Peter realized for him and all his 
Successors. — The question, Was Peter Pope *? examined 269 

LETTER VI. 

Was Peter Pope 1 — Examination continued. — But two Arguments that 
can not be answered. — Tillotson's Opinion 278 

LETTER VII. 
Papal Claim to Infallibility examined and refuted 287 

LETTER VIII. 

The Assertion that there are but two Principles, Authority and Rea- 
son, for the determining of the Meaning of Scripture, examined and 
confuted .^ 296 

LETTER IX. 
The Bishop's six Letters to Kirwan reviewed 307 

LETTER X. 
An Appeal to all Roman Catholics 320 



The Decline of Popery and its Causes 333 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 



ROMANISM NOT THE RELIGION FOR AMERICA. 

Change of opinion. Causes of it. 

Since the publication of the first series of the fol- 
lowing letters to Bishop Hughes, the feelings and opin- 
ions of the country have undergone a great change on 
the subject of Romanism. We simply state this as a 
fact, and not with any design of pointing to the cause. 
Many causes have arisen to produce this change. The 
doctrines and claims of Romanism have been laid open 
to public view. The attempts at revolutions in Eu- 
rope have taken place, in all of which Rome took the 
side of despotism. The Pope returned to the Tiber 
from his Hegira to Graeta and Portici, and overthrew 
the republic there established during his absence, and 
was conducted to the Vatican by a foreign mercenary 
soldiery over the dead bodies, and wading in the blood, 
of his people ; and in the Tabernacle, the denuncia- 
tions of Pio Nono as a tyrant have succeeded to the 
hosannas which were sung to him as a patriot. The 
efforts made by papal priests to exclude the Bible from 
our public schools have opened many eyes. The pop- 
ish press has spoken out — ^has denounced liberty of 
conscience and the right of private judgment as here- 
sies, and has honestly told us that papists were only 
waiting for the power to suppress both I The property 



14 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 

Priestly power. Gavazzi. Discussion. 

question has arisen ; Bedini was sent over as nuncio 
to settle it ; and the controversy in reference to it has 
revealed the grasping avarice of the priests, their jeal- 
ousy of their ov^n people, and how full of wrath are 
their vials when their will is resisted. 

Wielding their spiritual power to control the politi- 
cal views of their people, priests have interfered in our 
elections, and have put up the votes of their dupes to 
the highest bidder. 

The blood of American citizens, in the quiet exer- 
cise of their rights at the polls, has been shed by for- 
eign papists. 

The noble defense of liberty of conscience to all peo- 
ple, and in all lands, by the Nestor of the American 
Senate, Greneral Cass, has been made, and it has been 
assaulted by Bishop Hughes in such a way as to ex- 
pose not merely his weakness as a man, but his adher- 
ence to persecuting principles. 

Gavazzi has visited our country, exiled from Italy 
for his free principles, and has exposed the principles, 
the policy, and the designs of the Pope and the Jesuits. 
He was a competent witness from the heart of the sys- 
tem, and who could, with burning eloquence, tell us 
what he knew, and saw, and felt. 

Discussions — discussions which bear to purity of 
sentiment the same relation which do high winds and 
storms to purity of atmosphere, have been held in ev- 
ery variety of form all over the country, in which the 
people have been made to see how enormous are the 
claims of Romanism, and how imperative is the duty 
to resist them. 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. If5 

The press. Political truckling. The Bible. 

In one way or another, the claims of Romanism 
have been discussed in the halls of Congress, and in 
many of our State Legislatures ; and the press, as with 
a thousand tongues, has echoed these discussions from 
the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the extreme south 
to the. extreme north. These discussions in high places 
have gone down among the people, and are carried on 
with more or less interest in every community, in al- 
most every work-shop in the land. 

These causes, together with the truckhng of our pol- 
iticians to the priests, in order to secure the votes of 
their people, have aroused the American feeling to an 
unwonted degree, and have given rise to an American 
party, which, if wisely managed, will, for all future 
years, place these United States beyond all fear from 
the priests and partisans of Rome ; and if there is any 
one opinion in which the masses of our people more 
cordially unite than another, it is in this, that Roman- 
ism is not the religion for the United States ; and 
for this opinion there are the most substantial reasons, 
a few of which we shall here state : 

I. The people of the United States reverence and 
honor the Bible. We are an amalgam of all nations, 
and kindreds, and tongues, and people. The gay and 
trifling French, the plodding G-erman, the slow and so- 
ber Hollanders, the suspicious Spaniard, the English 
cavalier and Puritan, the solemn, unbending Scotch, 
and the witty and fan-loving Irish, have all largely 
contributed to our present population. The people 
from those countries brought with them here their pe- 
culiarities of language, customs, prejudices^ reUgion ; 



16 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 

One great principle. The Bible every where. 

but these have been mainly lost by their descendants, 
who have grown up amid our free and generous insti- 
tutions. As our great Mississippi imparts its own pe- 
culiar color to all the waters that are poured into its 
deep channels by all its great and small tributaries, 
and then pours them out into the ocean, so do our in- 
stitutions impart their peculiar character to all our 
people ; and those who will not receive it are regarded 
as dry trees among those which are vigorous and fruit- 
bearing — dead at the top, and decaying all over, be- 
cause diseased at the root. We are not all a religious 
people, nor are we united in our belief as to the doc- 
trines of faith or the forms of worship. But if there is 
any one great principle which has obtained more wide- 
ly among our people than another, it is a love and 
reverence for the Bible. It was brought here equally 
by the Cavalier, the Huguenot, and the Puritan ; upon 
its principles all our civil and social institutions are 
founded. It has gone up to our universities, and down 
to our primary schools ; its great doctrines enter into 
all our principles of education ; it is the final judge in 
all questions of faith and practice, and to whose deci- 
sions all profess to bow. In gilded covers it graces the 
parlors of the rich ; in plainer form it cheers the cot- 
tage of the poor, and even the frail wigwam of the In- 
dian. A family without a Bible is almost as rare as a 
house without a chimney; and where such families 
are found, they are either foreign papists or scoffing 
infidels. And such is our national attachment to the 
Bible, that we would contend for it to the death as for 
the very palladium of our liberty. 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 17 

Rome against the Bible. The Council of Trent. 

But the tendency of Romanism is to produce a dis- 
regard for the Bible. It teaches that the Scriptures 
are neither a consistent nor authoritative rule of faith 
— that they have no authority save from the Church 
— ^that without tradition they are an imperfect rule — 
that they must be only received as interpreted by the 
unanimous consent of the fathers, and by an infalhble 
head. By this scheme the Scriptures are comparative- 
ly worthless, save to prop up the Church; and, even 
with all these restrictions, by the laws of the Council 
of Trent, none can read the Bible without a license 
from his bishop or inquisitor, which license must be 
based on a certificate from his confessor that the read- 
ing will not injure him ! The same council ordained 
that booksellers selling Bibles to persons without such 
a license should forfeit the value of the books, and be 
otherwise punished at the discretion of the bishop. And 
then a bull of Pius IV. pronounces all violating these 
rules as guilty of mtortal sin — a sin which can not be 
forgiven in this world nor in the world to come ! 

And the practice of the Church of Rome is in ac- 
cordance with those principles. The efforts of all its 
priests, from the Pope down, are to prevent the circula- 
tion of the Bible, wholly where they can, and, where 
they can not, to resist it by every effort. The Vatican 
has denounced the Bible Society as '' a device of Sa- 
tan ;" the circulation of the Bible in Ireland as '' sow- 
ing tares among wheat," as " poisoning the children 
with the fatal poison of depraved doctrine ;" and the 
Protestant Bible as ^^the doctrine of devils." Since 
1816, four popes, including the present one, Pio Nono, 



18 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 

The priests. How tliey oppose. Not the men for us. 

have declared that the reading of the Bible in the vul- 
gar tongue undermines the very foundations of religion ! 

Such is Romanism as to the Bible. Nor are its 
priests backward in our country to manifest their sen- 
timents. They would banish it from our schools ; they 
would prevent its circulation ; they have made bonfires 
of volumes of the word of God ! Had they their way, 
the Bible would be as scarce a book in the United 
States as it is in Spain, Portugal, Naples or Italy. In 
Rome the Bible is as little known by the masses of the 
people as it is by the masses of the Hindoos in Calcut- 
ta. The truth is, the Bible and Romanism can not 
live together ; and hence the war of the priest upon 
the Bible is a war to the knife ! 

But we have happily learned in these United States 
that the Bible is as necessary to the state to teach the 
citizens patriotism and morals, as it is to the Church 
to teach its members the doctrines and the practices- of 
piety toward Grod and man. And who are these im- 
ported gentry from the most deeply degraded countries 
of Europe, who would teach us that to read the Bible 
without their license is a mortal sin — that the Protest- 
ant Bible is " the doctrine of devils" — that it must be 
banished from our schools, and withdrawn from the 
people ? They are not the men for our country, nor is 
their religion the religion for America. The great prin- 
ciples of the Bible underlie all our institutions ; and as 
well might these missionaries of darkness seek to up- 
heave our mountains, or change the course of our 
mighty rivers, or quell the ceaseless sounding of the 
sea, as to induce our people to give up the Bible. And 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 19 

Impertinence. Wrong views of religion. 

what arrant impertinence, leaving out of the question 
its wickedness, to seek to induce us to give up the Hght 
of hfe, that, amid the darkness that would ensue, they 
might bind us in their fetters, and then exultingly lay 
us at the feet of the Pope ! 

II. Romanism imparts wrong views of personal re- 
ligion. The Bible teaches our depravity, and points 
out its remedy. We are all guilty and exposed to pun- 
ishment ; and to save us from the death to which our 
sins assign us, God gave his Son to die for us, that all 
believing in him might have life. The religion of the 
Grospel, subjectively, consists in the hearty belief of all 
it teaches concerning Christ. This belief constitutes 
the believer, and he that believeth shall be saved. The 
state of the heart is the great matter in personal relig- 
ion. Faith, by changing the heart, changes the life ; 
it works by love ; and he that dwelleth in love dwell- 
eth in God, and God in him. The image of Christ en- 
stamped upon the heart is the seal which authenticates 
us as the children of God, by whatever name we are 
called, or to whatever Church we belong. This is our 
glorious Protestantism ! 

But, according to the dogmas of Romanism, all gifts 
and graces are nothing, unless found in its communion. 
Its teachings, sacraments, and ordinances alone have 
saving efficacy. Its baptism regenerates — its confirm- 
ation sanctifies — its penance absolves — ^its eucharist 
communicates the actual body and blood of Christ, 
and its extreme unction prepares for death ! and faith, 
with them, is to believe all this ! When we add to 
these the satisfaction which suffering makes for sin, 



20 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 

No salvation to heretics. Creed of Pius IV. 

and the power of the priest to absolve and commute, 
we need not be surprised at the moral state of those 
countries where these views of religion obtain among 
the masses. And unless we believe all this, and the 
nonsensical rubbish of ten centuries besides, however 
holy, we can not be saved. 

Need we pause a moment to prove that it is a Rom- 
ish doctrine that none can be saved out of its com- 
munion ? "What priest denies it, or what papist, save 
those almost .protestantized by our free institutions ? 
The Romish Church recognizes but one shepherd, the 
Pope ; and but one fold, itself; and those who are not 
the sheep of the Pope can not be the sheep of Christ. 
The creed of Pius IV., to which every priest assents in 
ordination, has this declaration appended : ^' I do sin- 
cerely hold this true catholic doctrine, without which 
no one can be saved." The decree of Boniface VIII. 
says, " We declare, assert, define, and pronounce, that 
it is necessary for salvation for every human being to 
be subject to the Pope of Rome." And the famous 
bull " In Coena Domini," containing the following fear- 
ful excommunication, is read yearly in St. Peter's on 
Maunday Thursday : " "We excommunicate and anath- 
ematize, in the name of Grod Almighty, ... all 
Hussites, Wickliffites, Lutherans, Calvinists, Hugue- 
nots, Anabaptists, Trinitarians, and all other heretics, 
by whatever name called, and of whatever other sect 
they may be." When this fearful, but now quite 
harmless, bull is read, a lighted candle is cast on the 
ground and extinguished, to signify that eternal dark- 
ness is the portion of all the sects specified I And the 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 21 

Fearful cannon. True to her principles. 



ceremony is concluded by firing a cannon from the 
castle of Saint Angelo, which, it is supposed, makes all 
the heretics in the world to tremble ! 

And in commenting on Genesis, vii., 23, the Douay 
Bible of 1635 says, '' God had but one ark, and one 
Noah for its chief governor, and all without the ark 
died, to signify that all who die without the See Apos- 
tolic are eternally damned." 

Such are the blasphemous tenets of Romanism, and 
which can not be changed, because Rome is infallible. 
Faith in Christ, a renewed nature, abounding spirit- 
ual fruits, are nothing; but faith in the Pope, and 
in its absurd tenets, are every thing. If you believe 
in the Pope, and submit to his pompous bishops and 
sneaking priests, whatever else you may be, you are 
saved ; otherwise, if meek as Moses, or holy as John, 
you are lost ! And has not Rome been true to these 
principles ? When has she ever swerved from them ? 
What sect has she not cursed ? What noble name has 
she not sought to blast ? What science or study, fitted 
to enlarge and liberalize the mind, has she not cursed ? 
Those men who have been the lights of their age- 
Bacon, Luther, Calvin, Cranmer, Knox, Milton, New- 
ton, Howard, Wesley — she has shut out from heaven, 
and consigned to eternal torments ; while she has 
placed upon her calendar as saints men of the most 
desperate and debased character, simply because their 
wealth, their fiery zeal, their swords and daggers, were 
at her service ! Did she not take the butcher Haynau 
to her bosom, while she poured all the vials of her 
wrath on Kossuth ? Does she not at this hour treat 



22 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 



Preferences of Rome. Political tendencies. Claims. 



the cruel King of Naples, and the no less cruel Duke 
of Tuscany, as the holiest sons of the Church, while 
the wailings of patriots rise from all their dungeons — 
while the blood of the martyrs to civil and religious 
liberty stains all their raiment ? 

If these things are so, can Romanism be the religion 
for America ? 

III. The political tendencies of Romanism are all 
adverse to our institutions. Indeed, if a religious sys- 
tem at all, it has a political basis, and all its great de- 
velopments have been of a political character. The 
Pope, as the vicegerent of G-od, is the head of the 
Church, and the Church is to the state as the soul is to 
the body ; and as the soul governs the body, so should 
the Church the state ! Here are the few links which 
compose that chain which has bound the Church and 
the nations for ages in servile obedience to the triple 
crown ; and although more carefully and stealthily put 
forth — although more frequently left to be inferred 
than directly taught, yet the claims to supremacy in 
the state for the Pope are as clearly asserted by Roman- 
ism as are those for his supremacy in the Church. 

What we here assert has been strongly denied, and 
denounced on the floor of Congress by a neophyte pa- 
pist, a representative from the city of Philadelphia. 
Deceived by the miserable priests, to whom, it would 
seem, he has given up his mind and heart, and know- 
ing nothing upon the subject himself, he was led, by 
dependence upon Jesuit veracity, to make the speech 
which he did, and which has drawn after it such a 
mass of refutation. We broadly assert, what Mr. Chan- 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 23 

Temporal sovereignty. Decrees. Bull of Paul IV. 

dler, on the floor of Congress, broadly denied, that tem- 
poral sovereignty is claimed by the Pope ; and we as- 
sert, in addition, that all his priests are sworn to main- 
tain it. The issue is thus fairly made, and the ques- 
tion at issue is to be decided by documentary testis 
mony. Now to the testimony. 

""We are instructed by G-ospel expressions that there 
are two swords, the spiritual and the temporal. He 
who denies that the temporal sword was in the power 
of Peter, attends badly to the word of the Lord ; the 
spiritual and the material sword are in the power of 
the Church ; but the one is to be exercised for the 
Church, the other b7/ the Church. The one is in the 
hands of the priest, the other in the hands of kings and 
armies, but at the nod and sufferance of the priest. It 
is necessary, however, the sword should be under the 
sword, and the temporal authority be subject to the 
spiritual power." (Decree of Boniface VIII., Juris Ca- 
nonica, Antwerp edition.) 

The same decree states, " For the truth itself bears 
witness that the spiritual power hath the province of 
regulating the earthly power. If the earthly power go 
astray, it shall be judged by the spiritual power. This 
power, although granted to a man and exercised by a 
man, is not human, but rather divine, given by the 
mouth, of G-od to Peter himself, and to all his suc- 
cessors." 

Paul IV., in his bull against heretics and schismat- 
ics, thus asserts his power : " The Pope of Rome here 
on earth is the vicar of G-od and our Lord Jesu^ Christ 
— ^hath obtained the plenitude of power over nations 



24 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 



Queen Elizabeth. Exhortation to Leo X. 



and kingdoms, and is judge of all men, and is to be 
judged of no man in the world." 

Hear Pius V., in his bull against Queen Elizabeth : 

'' He who reigneth on high hath committed the 

one holy Catholic Church, out of which there is no sal- 
vation, to one alone upon earth, that is, to Peter, the 
prince of the apostles, and to the Roman pontiff, the 
successor of Peter, to be governed with a plenitude of 
power. This one he hath constituted prince ove7* all 
nations^ that he may pluck up, overthrow, disperse, 
destroy, plant, and rear." And that there might be no 
mistake as to the power claimed, the Italian priest 
thus thunders against the English queen: ^^We de- 
prive the queen of her pretended right to kingdom, and 
of all dominion, dignity, and privilege whatsoever ; and 
absolve all the nobles, subjects, and people of the king- 
dom, and whoever else have sworn to her, from their 
oath, and all duty whatsoever in regard to dominion, 
fidelity, and obedience." 

Here is the exhortation of the Lateran Council to 
Leo X. : '' Snatch up the two-edged sword of divine 
power given to thee, and enjoin, command, and charge 
that a universal peace and alliance be made among 
Christians ; and to that bind kings in the fetters of the 
great King, and firmly fasten nobles with the iron man- 
acles of censures ; for to thee is given all power in 
heaven and in earth." 

Here, then, is the claim to temporal power asserted 
by popes and councils. Other authorities to the same 
point might be given, were it necessary. Those desir- 
ous of consulting them will find them in '' Barrow's 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 25 

Teachings of doctors. Allen and Parsons, Jesuits. 

Treatise on the Pope's Supremacy," and in other stand- 
ard works on the subject. 

Equally clear are the teachings of Romish doctors, 
theologians, and annalists on the same subject. They 
maintain that all the power of Christ, who was King 
of kings and Lord of lords, and to whom all power in 
heaven and earth belonged, was delegated to the Pope, 
his vicegerent. One says, '' The power of the Pope is 
infinite, because great is the Lord, and great is his 
power, and of his greatness there is no end !" " The 
Pope," says Thomas Aquinas, '' is the top of both pow- 
ers ; so that, when any one is excommunicated for 
apostasy, his subjects are, ipso facto, freed from his 
dominion, and from their oath of allegiance.""^ And 
Baronius says, " There can be no doubt of it but that 
the civil principality is subject to the sacerdotal." 

Foremost in the assertion and maintenance of the 
temporal power of the Pope have been the Jesuits. 
During the reign of Elizabeth, William Allen, a lead- 
ing Jesuit, taught that '^ it was the duty of a nation 
to refuse allegiance to a sovereign who had fallen off 
from the Catholic Church ;"t and Parsons, another dis- 
ciple of Loyola, taught that '' it is a fundamental con- 
dition of a sovereign's whole authority that he should 
cherish and protect the Roman Catholic faith. It 
would be blindness to regard him as capable of reign- 
ing should he fail to fulfill that condition ; much rath- 
er would his subjects be bound, in such a case, to ex- 
pel him from the throne." 

Nor were these claims asserted by the popes, nor 

* Quoted by Dr. M'Cree, p. 18, 19. t Ranke's Popes, p. 172. 

B 



26 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 

Rule of popes. Depositions. King John. 

defended by learned doctors, as mere theories. For 
centuries together the popes of Rome reigned over Eu- 
rope as its spiritual and temporal lords. They distrib- 
uted titles, revenues, territories, as if all belonged to 
them. They were umpires in all disputes, and final 
judges in all quarrels. They made emperors, gave 
crov^ns to their favorites, dethroned their enemies, re- 
duced nations to vassalage, made wars, raised crusades. 
History furnishes us with a list of sixty-four emperors 
and kings deposed by the popes, among whom that 
of King John of England stands conspicuous. Ac- 
knowledging the Pope's spiritual power, but denying 
his temporal, the enraged Innocent III. thundered forth 
his excommunication, and laid his kingdom under in- 
terdict. The priests shut up the churches, muffled the 
bells, and in every possible way worked upon the su- 
perstitious fears of an ignorant people. The land 
seemed clothed in sackcloth. Deserted on every hand, 
John yielded an ignominious submission. He gave 
up his crown and sceptre, the emblems of royalty, into 
the hands of the Pope^s nuncio^ who, after keeping 
them for some days, restored them in the name of the 
Pope. John submissively received them, and present- 
ed the nuncio with a large sum of money, which the 
haughty Pandulf received as a pledge of the king's de- 
pendence, and then trampled it under his feet !=^ 

Now, we ask, has this claim for the exercise of 
temporal power been ever withdrawn? Never. An 
effort is being made every where in England and 
America to show that Rome seeks no temporal or sec- 

* Smollett's History of England. 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 27 



Spiritual weapons. Beliarniine's figure. 

ular authority any where but through her spiritual ! 
And if, on the supposition that all history is false, we 
admit the principle, how does it mend the matter? 
The Pope is the vicar of Christ, and exercises all the 
authority of Christ. Hence all his authority is spirit- 
ual authority. And what are his spiritual weapons ? 
They are no less than omnipotence, infallibility, abso- 
lution, everlasting salvation or damnation — weapons 
stolen from the Grod of heaven, and wielded with aw- 
ful influence over the fears of the ignorant and super- 
stitious, who compose the great mass of the papal na- 
tions ! And what is worth the allegiance of a man to 
his government who owes his spiritual allegiance to 
his priests ? He who rules the spirit rules the man. 
And hence Bellarmine compares the secular power to 
the body, and the spiritual to the soul of man, and 
ascribes to the Church the same power over the state 
which the soul exercises over the body l^ And, as the 
soul often wills the destruction of the body to secure 
its own great spiritual interests, so may the Church, 
for the same end, will the destruction of the state ! 
Indeed, Hildebrand, in his most extravagant claims to 
govern the world, always stood upon his spiritual pre- 
rogatives as the vicar of Jesus Christ. 

And not only have not these claims been withdrawn, 
but there is an oath upon the soul of every Romish 
bishop and priest upon earth to maintain them ! Turn 
to that '^ bishop's oath," whose publication has caused 
such a shaking among the mitred heads of England 
and America ! Read and ponder these clauses : 

^ Ranke's Popes, p. 172. 



2S 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 



Bishop's oath. Royalties of St. Peter. 

" I will help them to defend the Roman papacy, and 
the royalties of Saint Peter, saving my order, against 
all men." 

'' The rights, honors, privileges, and authority of the 
holy Roman Catholic Church, of our lord the Pope, and 
foresaid successors, I will endeavor to preserve, defend, 
increase, and advance." 

Now the question arises. What are the royalties of 
Saint Peter, that every bishop is thus sworn to defend 
against all men ? Here are a few of these royalties : 

" To have a plenitude of power, by which he can 
infringe any law, and act according to his sovereign 
will. 

" To be so much superior to all other men, that none 
shall presume to tax his faults or to judge of his judg- 
ment. 

'' To be so exalted that it is idolatry to disobey his 
commands. 

" To possess the spiritual and the temporal sword ; 
to be superior to all sovereigns on earth — nay, so much 
superior, that it is held of necessity to salvation for ev- 
ery human creature to be subject to the Roman pontiff. 

" To have a right to dethrone heretical princes, ab- 
solve their subjects from their allegiance, and empow- 
er Roman Catholics to exterminate them, and seize 
upon their lands." 

And this list of royalties may be greatly extended 
from those enumerated by Barrow on the Pope's Su- 
premacy, and from the great speech of Dr. Cooke, of 
Belfast, in Exeter Hall. The above, however, are suf- 
ficient for our present purpose. 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 29 

Affirmation. Bishops' dilemma. A question. 

We affirm, then, in the face of our country and of 
the world, that the popes of Rome have claimed tem- 
poral supremacy — ^that the claim has never been with- 
drawn — ^that it is now claimed — ^that it is necessarily 
involved in their claim to spiritual supremacy, and 
that these claims, tied up in the same package with 
the other ^' royalties of Saint Peter ^^^ every Romish 
bishop upon earth is sworn to '^ defend, increase, and 
advance." And this they are doing in all the earth, 
by all means — openly where they dare ; secretly, and 
by all the deceivable of unrighteousness, where they 
must. That oath is upon the soul of Bishop Hughes, 
and, if true to his adopted country, he is a perjured 
ecclesiastic ; or, if true to the Pope, from whom he has 
received the titles and feathers with which he has 
made such a fuss, and which he displays with as much 
apparent delight as does a baby its bawbles, then he is 
a sworn spy upon our rulers, and a traitor to our insti- 
tutions. Sworn to defend^ increase^ and advance the 
royalties of Saint Peter ^ he waits only the fitting op- 
portunity to cage our eagle, and to send him to the 
Vatican as a rare and dangerous bird— to act as anoth- 
er Pandulph in rendering our great country tributary 
to his dotard master who reigns on the Tiber. 

If these things are so, can Romanism be the religion 
for America ? Could the question be put to the coun- 
try, millions of voices would cry No ; and, in the lan- 
guage of King John to Pandulph, commanding him to 
submit to the Pope, they would say, 

** Thou canst not, cardinal, devise a name 
So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous, 



30 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 



Law of caste. Claims How carried out. 

To charge me to an answer, as the Pope. 
Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England 
Add thus much more, that no Italian priest 
Shall tithe or toll in our dominions." 

IV. Uomanism fosters a law of caste unfriendly to 
all the great interests of society. 

"We are made of one blood, and are all tranches of 
the same parent stock. God is alike the father of all 
men, and is no respecter of persons. The Bible is de- 
signed alike for all. It is in the moral world as the 
sun in the physical, for the illumination of all. The 
design of the religion of the Grospel is to draw men in 
love to G-od, and to bind them in love to one another 
— to subdue the depravity of the heart— to extirpate 
its selfishness and passions-^to infuse a new and spir- 
itual life into the soul — so to recast and to renew the 
race as to induce all men to regard each other as 
brethren. 

How different from all this is the object and tenden- 
cy of Romanism ! The Pope puts forth his monstrous 
claims to supremacy on the ground of his being the 
vicegerent of Jesus Christ, and brands and condemns 
as rebels against God all who deny them ! His bish- 
ops and priests are scattered over the earth to assert 
these claims in his name, and to brand and condemn 
as heretics all who refuse to submit to them — to treat 
them as heathen and publicans. They forbid their 
people to read our Bibles — ^to send their children to our 
public schools — ^to go to our churches — to intermarry 
with us — to pray with us ; and when they die, they 
forbid them to be buried in our grave-yards ! The 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 31 

Oar servants . Hindooism. Obedience to the law. 

very servants in our families incur guilt if they bow at 
our family altars — if they eat meat at our tables at 
certain times and on certain days — guilt which can 
only be removed by penance. What is all this but the 
old ceremonial law of Judaism ? Yes, worse than this, 
the law of caste of the Hindoos in papal dress. This 
law of caste we feel in our families — we meet it at 
the polls — in social and political life. Those who obey 
the priest are pure, however otherwise defiled ; and 
those who do not are defiled, however otherwise pure. 
Here is Hindooism in the midst of us, tricked off by 
juggling priests as an angel of Hght ! 

The great characteristic of this law of caste is obe- 
dience to the See of Rome. This is the paramount 
law of the papist, as in separation from the Pope there 
is, ordinarily, no salvation ; and to secure it, the entire 
priesthood, of all tiers and grades, put forth their sleep- 
less efforts. Our Bible says not a word for the Pope, 
and it must not be read ! Our schools teach nothing 
about the holy father, nor holy water, and they must 
not be entered ! Our prayers omit all notice of holy 
Mary, ever virgin* — of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, and, 
indeed, of all the saints in the calendar, as intercessors, 
and are offered through the one Mediator, and they must 
not be heard ! Our churches resound with the great 
truth that '' he that belie veth on the Lord Jesus Christ 
shall be saved," if there were not a pope or priest on 
the globe, and they must be shunned. They are syn- 
agogues of Satan. The Protestant is white with the 
leprosy of the mortal sin of schism ; and as his soul is 
sent to hell, his very bones must not lie in consecrated 



32 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 

The heart with Rome. O'Connell. Only injurious 

ground. Allegiance to the Pope is allegiance to God, 
so that the Pope is the true sovereign and ruler of the 
papist, in whatever country or under whatever gov- 
ernment he may reside. The people obey the priest, 
the priest the bishop, the bishop the archbishop, the 
archbishop the Pope ; and bishops and archbishops, 
when invested with their insignia of office, thus prom- 
ise and swear : '^ I will, by myself in person, visit the 
threshold of the apostles every three years, and give 
an account to our lord of all my pastoral office, and 
of all things in any wise belonging to the state of 
my Churchy to the discipline of my clergy and peo- 
ple^ .... and I will^ in like manner^ hum- 
bly receive and diligently execute the apostolic com- 
mands ;" so that wherever may be the body of the 
true papist, his heart is with Rome. Of this we have 
a recent and powerful illustration in Daniel O'Connell, 
whose brilliant powers might have made him a bless- 
ing to his country, had they been connected with mor- 
al or religious principles, who, in dying, ordered that 
his heart should be taken from his body, and sent em- 
balmed to Rome, while nothing was given to poor Ire- 
land but his corruptible, heartless carcass ! 

And can all this be otherwise than injurious to all 
our interests, moral, social, and civil? Does it not 
tend to form a government within a government, and 
thus to divide the allegiance of the people ? Does it 
not tend to bring the priest, and the magistrate, and 
the legislator into conflict, when the interests of the 
Pope and the state clash ? The priests are the spies 
and constables of the Pope, and they will not, if they 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 33 

Political animosities. The great question. 

can, permit his interests to suffer. Does it not tend to 
political animosities, the papist making all other in- 
terests bow to those of his master ? We point, for an 
answer to these questions, to all the cities and towns 
in the country — to all the Legislatures in the land 
where the Romish element has strength enough to 
show itself. It engenders social divisions, and sows 
discord even in the family circle, whose secrets the 
priest wrings out of his female confessor. It leads to 
the education of our youth into entirely distinct civil 
and religious principles ; and, instead of going out 
upon the stage of life feeling that, as Christians, they 
have but one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and as cit- 
izens but one country, one government, one destiny, 
they go out, the Protestant to contend against^ and 
the papist to contend /or, a spiritual despotism in the 
Church — the Protestant to contend against all inter- 
ference of the Pope, through his priests, in the state, 
and the papist to contend for it. Thus the tendency 
of Romanism is to form a law of caste, but less strin- 
gent than that of the Hindoos, because of our free in- 
stitutions, and which, in all its bearings, is only un- 
friendly to all the great interests of society. 

And we ask again. Can Romanism be the religion 
for America? As a religious system, it is an old fos- 
sil of the Dark Ages, formed to awe a rude and super- 
stitious people, and in all its great peculiarities in di- 
rect antagonism with the religion of the Bible, which 
is the religion of these United States. As a moral sys- 
tem, especially as administered by the Jesuits, it is 
demoralizing to the last degree ; as a political system, 

B2 



34 LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 

Tae great cry. Present state of the controversy. 

its aim and end is to make the Pope in the state, what 
he is in the Church, supreme. These things our coun- 
try is beginning to see and to feel ; and froni the Saint 
Lawrence to the Rio Grrande, and from the Atlantic to 
the Pacific, there is one deep, earnest cry, Romanism 
is not the Religion for America. 

The controversy with this politico-spiritual power 
has hitherto been too much confined to its dogmatic 
side, and to ministers and the pulpit. Its doctrines have 
been discussed and confuted, until, if Scripture, learn- 
ing, reason, could do any thing, not a shred of them is 
left. But what did the priests care about that, as their 
people never read ! Presuming on the apathy of the 
country as to forms of faith, and on the strength of old 
party ties, which were supposed to be made of wrought 
iron, and on the corruption of politicians and place- 
seekers, who, it was thought, would yield any thing to 
secure their election, and on their power to sway the 
votes of their own followers, which induced the belief 
that they could make them over to the party which 
would yield most to their demands, the bishops and 
priests became bold and imperious, and strongly polit- 
ical. The foreign vote ruled the election, and in New 
York it was put up by Bishop Hughes to the highest 
bidder ! Each year the price was raised. The Bible 
must be put out of our schools. Then the Romish 
schools must be supported from the public funds ; then 
foreigners must share the political offices ; then papists 
must be in the cabinet, and our ministers to foreign 
courts ; and then bishops must be consulted about 
laws before passed to a third reading, to see if they 



LETTER INTRODUCTORY. 35 

Party lines broken. Language of the country. 

would suit ! And the question was asked to what all 
this would grow, and the result is, that party lines 
have given way, and that, rather than be thus teased, 
and fretted, and goaded on from year to year by these 
foreign priests to some new surrender of great princi- 
ples, all parties are fused into a great American party, 
determined to stand by the Constitution and the Bible. 
And now the controversy has passed over from the 
priest and preacher to the pohticians — from the pulpit 
and the Tabernacle to the legislative halls of "Washing- 
ton and of nearly every state in the Union — from the 
religious to the secular press ; and from the few ardent 
opposers of the system into the hands of the people ; 
and the language of the country to the priests and peo- 
ple of Rome is. You shall be protected in your rights ; 
you are welcome to our immunities ; all the ways 
of business are open to you as to our own children ; 
we will clothe you if naked, feed you if hungry, take 
care of you if sick ; we will educate your children as 
our own ; but we will make our own laws, appoint our 
own magistrates and rulers, and, without any interfer- 
ence from you or your master, we will govern our- 
selves, and educate our children. The reUgion which 
you would bring us we now understand. It has shed 
the blood of our fathers ; it is inimical to all our insti- 
tutions ; rule or ruin is its motto ; it has been the fe- 
rocious enemy of the race — It is not the religion for 
America, 

" Thou mayst hold a serpent by the tongue, 

A caged lion by the mortal paw, 
A fasting tiger safer by the tooth, 
Than keep in peace with Rome." 



KIRWAN'S LETTERS 



TO THE 



RIGHT REV. JOHN HUGHES, 

BISHOP OF NEW YORK. 



LETTER I. 

INTRODUCTION. 



Reasons of interest. Position. 

My dear Sir, — ^Although an entire stranger to you, 
I have felt for many years greatly interested in your 
history and doings, and for the following reasons : 

You are the chief pastor of a very important portion 
of the Roman Catholic Church in this country, and 
your ecclesiastical position makes you emphatically a 
public man. If a bishop in Mexico or Missouri, like 
many mitred priests, you might hve unknown to fame ; 
but as the papal bishop of the commercial metropolis 
of the Western World, and of the most populous and 
wealthy diocese of your Church in the United States, 
this could not be expected. Position, you know, has 
much to do with our public character. It sometimes 
gives, even to weak and bad men, an importance out 
of all proportion to their merits. 

But, in addition to your position, which is one of 
high influence, you possess the requisite qualifications 



38 KIRWAN's LETTERS 

Saying something. Manly bearing. Self-made. 

to fill it. This is confessed by your most ardent op- 
ponents. By your genius, tact, and eloquence— by 
your sleepless devotion to the duties of your calling, 
you have obtained a position in the very first rank of 
the ecclesiastics of your Church ; and, without saying 
very much, this is saying considerable. 

Besides, at whatever odds, you have fought like a 
man with all your opponents. In controversies, relig- 
ious and political, you have not shunned the hall of 
debate, nor discussion through the press. You have 
taken your positions adroitly, and you have defended 
them with remarkable skill ; and even when convinced 
of the utter fallacy of your positions and defenses, I 
have yet sympathized with your manly firmness. It 
is in human nature to respect the man that, with an 
earnest soul, contends for what he esteems right ; and 
I must confess that, as to some things, when the pub- 
lic voice was against you, your course met with my 
approbation. 

Besides, if public rumor is worthy of belief, you have 
raised yourself into your present position by the force 
of your talents and character, from a social position 
comparatively humble. To me this is not the least of 
the reasons why I have felt interested in your career. 
The men of our race have been what is commonly call- 
ed self-made men. The ^^ Heroes in History" have 
been nearly all such. It requires high attributes, both 
of mind and soul, to rise above the disadvantages of 
family and fortune, and to take precedence of those 
who would fain believe that birth and wealth give a 
patent- right to the high places of influence. Your past 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 39 

Grounds of confidence. Birth-place. Irish in America. 

history, unless I misunderstand it, must have had a 
liberalizing influence upon you. You must look at 
things on a larger and wider scale, and through a 
clearer medium, than if you had been cradled in crim- 
son and educated in a convent. You know the dis- 
tinction between prejudice and principle — between 
what is entitled to belief and what we have been edu- 
cated to beheve — ^between what is truly reasonable 
and what is ecclesiastically so ; and I therefore address 
myself to you with a confidence far stronger, that 
what I shall say kindly and truly will be kindly and 
truly weighed, than if I addressed myself to a priest 
from Maynooth or Saint Omer, educated merely in the 
literature of legends and liturgies, and whose mind 
only possessed what was distilled into it from others. 
About such stupid, sluggish minds you must, by this 
time, know something. I shall address you not mere- 
ly as a priest or bishop, but as a high-minded and well- 
educated gentleman. 

Permit me to say that there is yet another reason 
why I have felt interested in your career. You were 
born in Ireland — that land of noble spirits and of warm 
hearts — that sweetest isle of the ocean ; and so was I. 
"We are natives of the same soil ; and although in prin- 
ciple, by education, and in all my feelings thoroughly 
American, yet I take a great pride in the high achieve- 
ments of native Irishmen. America has had its Mont- 
gomeries, its Chntons, its Emmetts, its Porters, its 
Brackenridges, from Ireland. Its sons have adorned 
the bar, the bench, the pulpit, the army, the navy, the 
Legislatures, the Congress of these United States. 



40 KIRWAN's LETTERS 

Profit and loss. Unworthy taunt Myself. 

That there are multitudes from Ireland who are no 
loss to their own country, nor any advantage to this, 
can not be denied. The evidence is every where pres- 
ent in the ignorance, the squalid poverty of its immi- 
grants. The reasons for this I may examine hereafter. 
But yet we have many fine illustrations of Irish gen- 
ius, character, and valor all along our history ; and I 
have regarded yourself as one of them, so far forth as 
a pushing force of character is concerned, and I have 
often pointed you out as an illustration of the respect- 
ability which Irish character is capable of attaining 
when relieved from the burdens that oppress and de- 
base it. Hence I have regarded as your eulogy the 
sneers of those who have addressed you as " John 
Hughes, the gardener." Such taunts come not from 
true men. 

Having said so much in reference to you, permit me 
now to say a word in reference to myself. I have just 
stated that I was born in Ireland. I may say to you, 
in addition, that I was born of Roman Catholic parents, 
and received my early education in the full faith of 
that Church at whose altars you now serve with such 
ability. I was baptized by a priest — I was confirmed 
by a bishop — I often went to confession — I have worn 
my amulets, and I have said my Pater Nosters and my 
Hail Marys more times than I can now enumerate. 
When a youth, none excelled me in my attention to 
mass, nor in the performance of the penances enjoined 
by the father confessor ; and, whatever were my occa- 
sional mental misgivings, I remained a true son of the 
Church until I had at least outgrown my boyhood. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 41 

The process to infidelity. Silence broken. 

Then, on as full an examination of the subject as I 
I could give it, I came to the conclusion that I could 
not remain a Roman Catholic. I first became an in- 
fidel. Knowing nothing of religion but that which 
was taught me by parents and priests, and thinking 
that that was the sum of it, when that was rejected, 
infidehty became my only alternative. Could it be 
otherwise ? Subsequently, by the reading of the Bi- 
ble and by the grace of Grod, I was led to embrace the 
religion of the Grospel. That religion I have now for 
many years professed and taught, and in connection 
with a Protestant Church. Unlike many who have 
left your communion, I have never bitterly assailed it. 
I am utterly unknown in the list of the champions of 
Protestantism versus Popery ; but yet some recent oc- 
currences have induced me to break a long silence, and 
to state, in a series of letters addressed to your Right 
Reverence, the reasons which induced me to leave 
the Roman Catholic Church, and which prevent me 
from returning to it. Of these letters, this is the first. 
I ask of you for them a kind and candid perusal. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 



42 K I R W A N ' S L E T T E R S 

Causes, Priests work miracles. Popular belief. 



LETTER II. 

Causes of early Misgivings. — Priestly Miracles. — Purgatory. — Praying 

to Saints. 

My dear Sir,— In my last letier I stated to you that 
I was born of Roman Catholic parents ; that I was 
baptized and confirmed in your communion, and that 
for many years I have been in connection with a Prot- 
estant Church. I stated that, whatever were my oc- 
casional mental misgivings, I remained a true son of 
the Church until I had nearly attained the years of 
manhood ; and that then, on as full an examination 
of the subject as I could give it, I came to the conclu- 
sion that I could not remain a Roman Catholic. Per- 
mit me, in the present letter, to state to you the causes 
of my early misgivings as to yours being a true church, 
and as to its holding the true faith. 

You know very well the common belief among the 
Irish peasantry that papal priests can work miracles. 
Whatever may be the teaching of the priests them- 
selves upon the point, such is the belief of the people 
— a belief strongly encouraged by the conduct of their 
spiritual leaders. Hence, in diseases, the people resort, 
not so much to the physician as to the priest ; they 
depend less upon the power of medicine than upon that 
of priestly charms. Although the son of inteUigent pa- 
rents, and educated from my youth for the mercantile 
profession, the miraculous power of the priest is yet 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 43 

Belief encouraged. Going to Father C 's. A conclave. 

associated with my earliest recollections of him ; and, 
as you know full well, the belief that this power is pos- 
sessed by their priests is one of the leading causes why 
the papal Irish bow with such entire and unmanly sub- 
mission to them. Nor are any efforts left untried to 
cherish and propagate this superstitious idea. 

In my youth there were two things which greatly 
shook my faith in the possession of this power. There 
resided not far from my parental residence a priest, 
whose fame as a miracle- worker was known all over 
the county in which he resided. The road to his house 
(called in that country a bridle-road) went by our door. 
I frequently saw, in the morning, individuals riding by, 
with a little keg resting before them on the saddle, or 
a jug hanging by the horse's side. I often asked who 
they were, and where they were going. I was told 

that they were going to Father C 's to get some 

of their sick cured. I asked what was in the keg or 
jug. I was told that it was Irish whiskey to pay the 
priest for his cures. I asked why they went so early 
in the morning. I w^as answered that unless they 
went early they would not find him sober. The tab- 
ernacle of poor Father C was made of dry clay, 

and needed a daily wetting. 

In one of the large interior towns of Ireland where 
I resided, the bishop of the diocese met his priests, or 
a part of them., once a year. Their meeting was al- 
ways held in the house where I resided, and over the 
store in which I was then a clerk. Among the priests 
that always met the bishop was the rollicking Father 
B , whose fame as a miracle- worker was extensive. 



44 kirwan's letters 

A rollicking priest. Impressive argument. 

He had also a reputation for learning and eloquence, 
and, because of his connection with an old and wealthy 
family, exerted a wide social influence. He always 
staid with us when he came to town. About ten 
o'clock one night, after one of those meetings of bishop 
and priests, I went out to shut up the store windows, 
and hearing a singular noise in the gutter, I went for- 
ward and assisted a man out of the mire. I soon rec- 
ognized him to be Father B , the miracle-worker. 

Running in, I announced, with some excitement, to 

the lady of the house, that Father B was drunk 

in the street. I received for my pains a stunning slap 
on the side of the face, with this admonition, " Never 
say again that a priest is drunk." This was a very 
impressive argument, and which, for some time, rung 
in my ears. I staggered under the blow. I assisted 
in cleaning off his reverence. I gave him his brandy 
next morning ; and, young as I was, my faith in mir- 
acle-working priests was effectually shaken. Although 
fearing to draw the conclusion, I felt it, that G-od would 
not bestow miraculous power upon those who lived a 
life, not of occasional, but of habitual intemperance. 
And I would ask you, sir, whether all this pretension 
to miraculous power by your priests is not a gross im- 
position upon the people, for the double purpose of 
keeping them in awe and getting their money ? Do 
not deny the fact in the face of many witnesses, and 
of what you know, do not evade the question. Let 
the bishop be silent, and the man of sense speak, and 
I have no fear as to the answer. 

The doctrine of Purgatory, you know, sir, is one of 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 45 

Purgatory. The dead list. A circumstance 

the peculiar and most cherished doctrines of your 
Church. Indeed, I do not know how your Church 
could get along without it, as by it you build your 
cathedrals and churches, and are enabled to fare sump- 
tuously every day. My object now is not to reason 
with you about it, nor to controvert it, but to state to 
you a few facts in reference to it, that made, in early 
life, a strong impression on my mind. You know that 
in Ireland the custom of the priest is, at a certain point 
in the service of the Mass, to turn his back to the altar 
and his face to the people, and to read a long list of 
the names of deceased persons whose souls are in Pur- 
gatory, and to offer up a prayer for their deliverance 
from it. This is done, or used to be done, in our chap- 
el on every Sabbath. To obtain the name of a deceased 
relative on that magic list, the priest must be paid so 
much a year, varying, I believe, with the ability of the 
friends to pay. If the yearly payment is not made 
when due, the name of the person is erased from the 
list. A circumstance arising out of this custom of 
your Church, occurring in my boyhood, is distinctly 
before me. A respectable man in our parish died in 
mid-life, leaving a widow and a large family of chil- 
dren to mourn his loss. True to her religious princi- 
ples and to her generous instincts, the widow had her 
husband's name placed on that list, and heard, with 
pious gratitude, his name read over from Sabbath to 
Sabbath, with a prayer offered for the deliverance of 
his soul from Purgatory. After the lapse of two or 
three years, on a certain Sabbath the name of her 
husband was omitted from the list. The fact filled 



46 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Tax not paid. Mortal and venial sins. 

her with mingled joy and fear ; joy, thinking that her 
husband had escaped from Purgatory ; and fear, lest 
she had done something to offend the priest ; and you 
know they are very easily offended when money is in 
question. On timid inquiry, she learned that his soul 
was yet in Purgatory, but that she had forgotten to 
send in the yearly tax at the time it was due. The 
tax was promptly paid, and the name was restored on 
the next Sabbath. "With this fact, sir, I am entirely 
conversant ; for that widow was my own mother, who 
sought the release of the soul of my father from Pur- 
gatory. Can you wonder, sir, that this incident made 
a deep impression upon my youthful mind, or that it 
shook my faith in your whole system ? And, as far as 

memory serves me. Father M was an amiable 

man, and above the ordinary level of the men of his 
calling. 

Another fact which early impressed me in reference 
to Purgatory was this. Your Church makes a distinc- 
tion between mortal and venial sinners. The former 
go to hell forever ; the latter go to Purgatory, '' whence 
they are taken by the prayers and alms offered for 
them, and principally by the holy sacrifice of the Mass." 
Now I always saw that the most mortal sinners, that 
every body would say went to hell, could always have 
masses said for them as if they went to Purgatory, 
provided their friends could pay ; and that less mortal 
sinners, that people would say went to Purgatory, were 
sent to hell if their friends could not pay for masses 
for them ; and their souls were kept in Purgatory for 
a long while when their friends paid promptly every 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 47 



Leo X. Prayers to saints. Scenes in our chapel. 

year, but their souls were soon prayed out whose 
friends could not pay long for them. Facts like these, 
sir, very early impressed my mind, and shook my faith 
in the religion of my parents and priests ; and when, 
in maturer years, I could more fully consider them, 
they led me to reject religion as a fable cunningly de- 
vised by priests. You will not blame me for this, when 
even Leo X., of blessed memory, boasted of the proj&t- 
able account to which they had turned " the fable about 
Jesus Christ." 

Again : to pray to angelfe and saints is a doctrine of 
your Church. I am quite familiar with your explana- 
tions of it — with the distinctions which your writers 
make to free it from idolatry. It is precisely the dis- 
tinction which the heathen makes to get rid of the 
same charge. Perhaps, ere these letters are concluded, 
I may return to this subject ; I have only to do now 
with some of my early impressions in reference to it. 
In our parish chapel there were a great many pictures 
of saints, with very little pretension to art, and which 
reflected but little credit on painter or engraver. Whose 
pictures they were I do not remember ; but on Sab- 
bath morning, an hour before mass, I have often seen 
the poor people, and even some more wealthy and re- 
fined, going on their knees from the one picture to the 
other, and counting their beads, and bowing before 
them with external acts of the most profound and sin- 
cere worship. Although then I thought differently, I 
have not now a doubt but that it was idolatry. But 
the idea that struck me w^as this : Here are some pray- 
ing to Peter, or Paul, or John, or Mary ; the same 



48 kirwan's letters 

Logic about prayers to saints. 

pictures are hung up in ten thousand chapels all over 
the world, and in all these chapels persons are praying 
to them. Can these good saints hear but in one place, 
or can they hear all every where praying to them ? If 
they can hear all, then they are omnipresent ; if om- 
nipresent, they are gods. Thus we have as many gods 
as saints. But if they hear but in one place, then nine 
thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine out of the ten 
thousand are praying to an absent saint ! This one 
thought, reverend sir, very early in life impressed my 
mind, and was not the least powerful among the causes 
which led me, eventually, to reject the authority of 
your Church. How does this strike your own mind ? 
More of these causes in my next. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 49 

Coiitessioii. The priest's horse. Absolution. 



LETTER III. 

Causes of early Misgivings continued. — Confession. — Holy Wells. — 
Prohibiting the Bible. — An Incident. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter I commenced a 
statement to you of the causes which, in early life, 
caused my misgivings and distrust as to yours being 
a true Church, and as to its holding the true faith. I 
referred to some incidents connected with the claims 
of your priests to miraculous power, with the doctrine 
of Purgatory, and with praying to the saints. I shall 
now proceed with a statement of some more of those 
causes. 

The doctrine of confession is one of the primary doc- 
trines of your Church. It requires every good papist 
to confess his sins to a priest at least once a year. If 
any sins are concealed, none are forgiven. This doc- 
trine makes the bosom of the priest the repository of 
all the sins of all the sinners of his parish who make 
a conscience of confession. Hence the common saying 
in Ireland, " You carry as much sin about you as the 
priest's horse." And this is one of the sources of the 
fearful power which your priests have over your peo- 
ple ; and with this doctrine of confession is connected 
the power of the father confessor to grant absolution to 
the confessing penitent. It is sometimes affirmed, and 
then denied, to suit circumstances, that the priest 
claims such power ; but Dr. Challoner, in his " Catho- 

C 



50 K I R W A N ' S L E T T E R S 

Common feeling. The way of confessing. Questioned. 

lie Christian Instructed," chap. 9, asserts this power, 
and on what he deems scriptural authority ; and I 
never knew an individual who came from confession, 
with the privilege of partaking of the communion, who 
did not feel and believe that his sins were forgiven him ; 
and if they were not immediately forgiven, they would 
be on the performance of the prescribed penances. You, 
sir, will not say that I either misstate or misrepresent 
the doctrine. 

Now for some of my early impressions upon this 

subject. Father M held frequently his confessions 

at the house in which I was clerk. He sat in a dark 
room up stairs, with one or more candles on a table 
before him. Those going to confession followed each 
other on their knees from the front door, through the 
hall, up the stairs, and to the door of the room. When 
one came out of the confessing-room, another entered. 
My turn came. I entered the room, from which the 
light of day was excluded, and bowed myself before the 
priest. He made over me the sign of the cross, and 
after praying something in Latin, he ordered me to 
commence the detail of my sins. Such was my fright 
that my memory soon failed in bringing up past delin- 
quencies. He would prompt me, and ask. Did you do 
this thing or that thing ? I would answer yes or no. 
And when I could say no more, he would wave his 
hand over me, and again utter some words in Latin, 
and dismiss me. Through this process I often went, 
and never without feeling that my sins were forgiven. 
Sins that burdened me before were now disregarded. 
The load of guilt was gone ; and I often felt, when 



T O B I S H O P II U G H E S. 51 

Encourages to sin. A device. St. John's Well. 

prompted to sin, that I could commit it with impunity, 
as I could soon confess it and secure its pardon ; and 
this, sir, is the fearful and fatal effect of your doctrine 
of confession and absolution upon millions of minds. 

The questions, however, often came up, "Why does 
the priest go into a dark room in the daytime ? "Why 
not pray for me in English, and not in Latin? How 
can he forgive sin ? What if my sins, after all, are 
not forgiven ? And I always found that I could play 
my pranks better after confession than before, for I 
could go at them with a lighter heart. Very early in 
life my confidence in this doctrine of confession was 
shaken, and at a later period I came to the conclusion 
that it was a priestly device to ensnare the conscience 
and to enslave men. Do you, in your soul, believe it 
is any thing else ? 

Another thing which made early a deep impression 
on my mind was this. On my first remembered jour- 
ney to Dublin, we passed by a place, called, unless I 
mistake, St. John's "Well. It is, as you know, one of 
the " holy wells" of Ireland. There was a vast crowd of 
poor-looking and diseased people around it. Some were 
praying, some shouting ; many were up in the trees 
which surrounded it. All these trees were laden, in all 
their branches, with shreds of cloth of every possible va- 
riety and color. I inquired what all this meant. I was 
told, '' This is St. John's Well, and these people come here 
to get cured." But what do those rags mean, hanging 
on the trees ? I was told that the people who were not 
immediately cured tied a piece of their garments on 
some limb of the trees, to keep the good saint of the 



52 KIR AVAN^'S LETTERS 

Rags in memorial. Relic of Druidism. St. Patrick's Well. 

well in mind of their application ; and, judging from 
the number of pieces tied on the trees, I inferred that 
the number that went away cured were very few. I 
had previously read some travels in Africa describing 
some of the religious rites of the sable sons of that con- 
tinent, and the thought that those performed around 
St. John's Well were just like them occurred to me. 
I have no doubt but that the rites witnessed in my 
youth are performed there yet ; that the rags of dis- 
eased persons are now streaming from those trees to 
remind the saint of the requests of those who suspend- 
ed them. There was always a priest present to hear 
confessions, and to receive the pennies of the poor pil- 
grims ; and the impression then made upon my mind 
was, that it was a piece of paganism ; and I have since 
learned that it is a relic of Druidism ; and the rites 
and ceremonies about this well, I learn, are nothing in 
comparison with those performed at the wells of Saint 
Patrick, in the county Down. I will here insert an 
account of a festival at St. Patrick's Well, as given by 
an eye-witness : 

" When or how the custom which I shall describe 
originated, I know not, nor is it necessary to inquire ; 
but every Midsummer eve thousands of Roman Catho- 
lics, many from distant parts of the country, resort to 
these celebrated holy wells to cleanse their souls from 
sin, and clear their mortal bodies of diseases. The in- 
flux of people of different ranks, for some nights before 
the one in which alone, during the whole year, these 
wells possess this power (for on all other days and 
nights in the year they rank not above common draw- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 53 

Beggars. Coup d'cEil. Fanatics. 

wells), is prodigious ; and their attendants, hordes of 
beggars, whose ragged garments, if once taken off, 
could not be put on again by the ingenuity of man, in- 
fest the streets and lanes, and choose their lodgings in 
the highways and hedges. Having been previously 
informed of the approach of this miraculous night, and 
having made ourselves acquainted with the locality of 
the wells, early in the evening we repaired to the spot. 
We had been told that we should see something quite 
new to us, and we met with what scarcely was credi- 
ble on ocular evidence. The spot on which this scene 
of superstitious folly was exhibited was admirably 
adapted to heighten every attendant circumstance of 
it ; the wonderful wells, of which there are four, being 
situated in a square or patch of ground, surrounded by 
steep rocks, which reverberated every sound, and re- 
doubled all the confusion. The coup d'odil of the 
square on our approach presented a floating mass of 
various-colored heads, and our ears were astonished 
with confused and mingled sounds of mirth and sor- 
row — of frantic, enthusiastic joy, and deep, desponding 
ravings. On descending into the square, we found 
ourselves immediately in the midst of innumerable 
groups of these fanatics, running in all directions, con- 
fusedly in appearance, but methodically, as we after- 
ward found, in reality ; the men and the women were 
barefooted, and the heads of all were bound round with 
handkerchiefs. Some were running in circles, some 
were kneehng in groups, some were singing in wild 
concert, some were jumping about like maniacs at 
the end of an old building, which, we were told^ was 



54 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Old ruins. Terrible ascent. The old man. 

the ruins of a chapel erected, with several adjacent 
buildings, in one miraculous Midsummer's night by 
the tutelary saint of the wells, of whose talent as a 
mason they give, it must be confessed, no very exalted 
opinion. When we had somewhat recovered from the 
first surprise, which the (to us) unaccountably fantas- 
tic actions of the crowd had given us, we endeavored 
to trace the progress of some of these deluded votaries 
through all the mazes of their mystic penance. The 
first object of them all appeared to be the ascent of the 
steepest and most rugged part of the rock, up which 
both men and women crawled their painful way on 
their hands and bare knees. The men's clothes were 
all made so as to accommodate their knees with all the 
sharpness of the pointed rock ; and the poor women, 
many of them young and beautiful, took incredible 
pains to prevent their petticoats from affording any de- 
fense against its torturing asperities. Covered with 
dust, and perspiration, and blood, they at last reached 
the summit of the rock, where, in a rude sort of chair 
hewn out of the stone, sat an old man, probably one 
of their priesthood, who seemed to be the representa- 
tive of St. Patrick, and the high-priest of this religious 
phrensy. In his hat each of the penitents deposited a 
halfpenny, after which he turned them round a certain 
number of times, listened to the long catalogue of their 
offenses, and dictated to them the penance they were 
to undergo or perform. Then they descended the rock 
by another path, but in the same manner and posture, 
equally careful to be cut by the flints, and to suffer as 
much as possible : this was, perhaps, more painful 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 55 

The descent. A beggar. Touching the stone. 

traveling than the ascent had been ; the suffering 
knees were rubbed another way ; every step threaten- 
ed a tumble, and if any thing could have been lively 
there, the ridiculous attitudes of these descenders would 
have made us so. When they gained the foot of the 
hill, they (most of them) bestowed a small donation of 
charity on some miserable groups of supplicants who 
were stationed there. One beggar, a cripple, sat on 
the ground, at one moment addressing the crowd be- 
hind him, and swearing that all the Protestants ought 
to be burned out of the country, and, in the same 
breath, begging the penitents to give him one halfpen- 
ny for the love af ' swate blessed Jasus.^ The peni- 
tents now returned to the use of their feet, and com- 
menced a running sort of Irish jiggish walk round sev- 
eral cairns or heaps of stones erected at different spaces. 
This lasted for some time. Suddenly they would pros- 
trate themselves before the cairn, and ejaculate some 
hasty prayers ; as suddenly they would rise and resume 
their mill-horse circumrotation. Their eyes were fixed ; 
their looks spoke anxiety, almost despair ; and the 
operation of their faculties seemed totally suspended. 
They then proceeded to one end of the old chapel, and 
seemed to believe that there was a virtue, unknown to 
us heretics, in one particular stone of the building, 
which every one was careful to touch with the right 
hand. Those who were tall did it easily ; those who 
were less left no mode of jumping unpracticed to ac- 
complish it. But the most remarkable, and doubtless 
the most efficient of the ceremonies, was reserved for 
the last ; and surely nothing was ever devised by man 



56 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

The bathing scene. | Dressing. The debauch. 

which more forcibly evinced how low our nature can 
descend. Around the largest of the wells, which was 
in a building very much, to common eyes, like a sta- 
ble, all those who had performed their penances were 
assembled, some dressing, some undressing, many stark 
naked, A certain number of them were admitted at 
a time into this holy well, and there men and Vv^omen 
of every age bathed promiscuously without any cover- 
ing. They undressed before bathing, and performed 
the whole business of the toilet afterward in the open 
air, in the midst of the crowd, without appearing sen- 
sible of the observations of lookers-on, perfectly regard- 
less of decency, perfectly dead to all natural sensations. 
This was a strange sight, but so nearly resembling the 
feast of lunatics, that even the voluptuary would have 
beheld it without any emotions but those of dejection. 
The penance having terminated in this marvelous ab- 
lution, the penitents then adjourned either to booths 
and tents to drink, or join their friends. The air then 
rang with musical, monotonous singing, which became 
louder with every glass of whisky, finishing in frolic- 
some debauch, and laying, in all probability, the foun- 
dation for future penances and more thorough ablu- 
tions. No pen can describe all the confusion, no de- 
scription can give a just idea of the noise and disorder 
which filled this hallowed square, this theatre of fa- 
naticism, this temple of superstition, of which the rites 
rival all that we are told of in the East. The minor 
parts of the spectacle were filled up with credulous 
mothers half drowning their poor children to cure their 
sore eyes ; with cripples who exhibited every thing that 



TOBISHOPHUGHES. 57 

The diseased. The roads. The priests. 

has yet been discovered in deformity, expecting to be 
washed straight, and to walk away nimbly and comely. 
'' The experience of years had not shaken their faith ; 
and though nobody was cured, nobody went away 
doubting. Shouting, and howling, and swearing, and 
carousings filled up every pause, and ' threw o'er this 
spot of earth the air of hell.' I was never more 
shocked and struck with horror ; and perceiving many 
of them intoxicated with religious fervor and all-potent 
whisky, and warming into violence before midnight, 
at which time the distraction was at its chmax, I left 
this scene of human degradation in a state of mind 
not easily to be described. The whole road from the 
wells to the neighboring town was crowded with such 
supplicants as preferred mortal halfpence to holy pen- 
ance. The country around was illuminated with 
watch-fires ; the demons of discord and fear were 
abroad in the air ; the pursuits of the world and the 
occupations of the peaceful appeared put a stop to 
by the performance of ceremonies, disgraceful when 
applied to propitiate an all-compassionate divinity, 
whom these religionists were determined and taught 
to consider jealous rather than merciful. I wish it 
were in my power, without insincerity, to pay a com- 
pliment to the Irish Catholic clergy. On this occasion 
they were the mad priests of these Bacchanalian or- 
gies — the fomenters of fury — ^the setters-on to strife — 
the mischievous ministers of the debasement of their 
people, lending their aid to plunge their Credulous con- 
gregations in ceremonious horrors."^ 

* M'Gavin's Protestant, p. 403. 

C2 



58 ...^, ,....? 



KIR WAN'S LETTERS 



Impostures. The sun dancing. Father Sheely. 

Now, sir, can you, as a man of high intelligence, re- 
gard these things in any other light than as the merest 
impostures to delude the ignorant ? And what epithet 
sufficiently expressive of abhorrence can we apply to 
the priesthood who thus impose upon a credulous peo- 
ple ? Can Hindooism surpass this in its worst orgies ? 

I well rememher yet another of these impostures. 
When a boy, I often heard that, on the morning of 
Easter Sunday, the sun might be seen dancing in the 
heavens and in the chapels, to express its joy on the 
anniversary of the resurrection of Christ, and I often 
wished to be where I could witness the phenomenon. 
It took place in a certain chapel, and in the presence 
of many pious and admiring beholders. An unbeliev- 
er in priestly miracles was present, who traced up the 
dancing of the sunbeams through the chapel to an 
individual managing concealed mirrors so as to pro- 
duce the wonderful effect! Of this I heard; and al- 
though it seemed incredible, yet it made an impression 
on my mind. The probability of the imposture can 
not be doubted by those who know that the earth 
which covers the grave of Father Sheely (who was 
convicted of treason, and hung in the county of Tip- 
perary), when boiled in milk, cures a variety of dis- 
eases. Would that we had not convincing evidence of 
far worse impositions than this ! 

The Bible, with all its notes and glosses, as publish- 
ed by the authority of your own Church, is denied by 
you to be a complete rule of faith. On this question I 
will not now enter, only so far as to say that this de- 
nial holds a very intimate connection with its virtual 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 59 

The Bible, how treated. Excluded. No preaching. 

withholding from the people. If not a complete rule, 
it may lead astray ; and as it is capable of opposite in- 
terpretations in some of its passages, the souls of the 
people must not be endangered by its general circula- 
tion. It is better to know nothing of the Bible than 
in some particulars to misinterpret it ! Your infallible 
Church teaches both ways on a variety of subjects, and, 
among the rest, on the circulation of the Bible. It al- 
lows it in Protestant countries, with some stringent 
regulations ; it virtually forbids it in purely papal coun- 
tries. How many Bibles could your reverence procure 
in Spain, Portugal, Naples, or Italy ? In your many 
visits to Rome, to give an account of yourself to your 
master, have you ever sought for a Bible in its book- 
stores? How many Spaniards or Italians have ever 
read a Bible through ? How many of the Irish peas- 
antry that can read and write have ever read one chap- 
ter of it ? Now, sir, for years together, I sat daily at 
table with a Catholic priest, who was a member of the 
family, and the curate of the parish, and I never saw 
a Bible used in the family. I never heard at table, or 
in the morning, or in the evening, a religious service. 
The numbers of the Douay Bible, published by subscrip- 
tion in folio, were taken in the family, but never read. 
And not only so, but I never heard a sermon preached 
in a Catholic chapel in Ireland, nor a word of explana- 
tion on a single Christian topic, doctrine, or duty. The 
thing nearest to a sermon that I heard was a scold from 
the altar because some person sent for the priest at 
midnight to confess and anoint a dying person. And 
before I was sixteen years of age, I never read a chap- 



60 KIRWAN's LETTERS 

The people ignorant. Search and welcome. 

ter in the word of Grodj while in other respects my ed- 
ucation was not neglected. I often asked the mean- 
ing of this thing and the other, but there was no ex- 
planation ; nor can one out of one thousand, in papal 
countries, give a single reason for one of your peculiar 
doctrines or duties. And since, in the maturity of my 
judgment, I have examined this matter, I have greatly 
commended your wisdom in withholding the Bible from 
the people ; if I were a bishop or a priest of your 
Church, with no better principles than the rest of you, 
I would do the same. I heard a man who lived near 
the Canada line, in Vermont, during the last war with 
Grreat Britain, tell the following story. " There was," 
said he, '^ much smuggling going on. Whenever we 
met a traveler with a pack of any kind, we ordered it 
to be searched. Honest men always said, ' Search and 
welcome.' But whenever a man refused, or made any 
fuss about it, we always suspected that there were con- 
traband goods in the pack, and we were never mis- 
taken." You have brought contraband goods into the 
house of God, and the Bible tells the people so. Hence 
it is forbidden. Light is the sure death of darkness. 
The circulation of the Bible will be the death of your 
whole system. 

With respect yours, Kirwan. 



TOBISHOPHUGHES. 61 

Road to infidelity. The mind untaught 



LETTER IV. 

Transition from Popery to Infidelity. — Inquiry awakened. — Abstinence 
from Meats. — The Mass. — Confession. — Tr an substantiation. — Reli- 
gion vanishes. 

My dear Sir, — In my last two letters I have stated 
to you some of the causes of my ea'rly misgivings as to 
yours being a true Church, and as to its holding the 
true faith. These causes I might multiply indefinitely, 
for you well know it to be a law of the human mind 
that, when its confidence is once shaken, it sees causes 
of suspicion even in things true and honest. In my 
first letter I stated to you that, when I deliberately re- 
jected the authority and teachings of your Church, I 
became an infidel, and my object in the present let- 
ter is to reveal to you the process through which my 
mind passed in its transition from popery to infidelity. 
I believe that your reverence will pronounce it a very 
natural one. 

On reaching the years of maturity, my mind was a 
perfect blank as to all religious knowledge ; and if in- 
struction is ever given by your Church or priests, my 
advantages were peculiarly good for receiving it. In- 
deed, I was even talked of as a candidate for Maynooth. 
"While my mind was filled with superstitious notions 
concerning meats and penances, and external observ- 
ances and legends, it was utterly ignorant of the Bible. 
With my Missal I was somewhat familiar : I said the 



62 KIR WAn's LETTERS 

Common sense. No answer. Spirit of inquiry. 

Catechism when I was confirmed at the age of nine 
or ten, and that was the amount of my rehgious edu- 
cation. At the age of eighteen years the Catechism 
was forgotten and the Missal was neglected ; and as 
my conscience was uneducated, and my mind unfur- 
nished with religious principles, the only test of truth 
left me was my common sense. I then became the 
associate of companions of Protestant education, who 
would sometimes ask me my reason for this and that 
observance, and not being able to give any, as none 
were ever given me, I was frequently put to the blush. 
I candidly state to you that it was in this way I was 
first led to bring to the test of my common sense, then 
my only standard, some of the doctrines and rites of 
your Church ; and this reveals the reason why your 
priesthood is so intensely concerned that Catholic chil- 
dren should be guarded from all contact with those of 
Protestant education. The spirit of inquiry is conta- 
gious, and Pope, bishops, and priests fear it worse than 
the plague. Its indulgence, you know, either is, or 
leads to, mortal sin. Let me briefly state to you some 
of the effects of this spirit of inquiry upon me. 

From my youth up I was taught to abstain from all 
meats on Fridays and Saturdays. Why on these days 
more than any other I was never told. And if by mis- 
take I was involved in the violation of this law, I felt a 
burden upon my conscience of which confession could 
only relieve me. Circumstances led me to inquire into 
this matter. I saw good papists eating eggs, and fish, 
and getting drunk on these days, but this was no vio- 
lation of the law of the Church ! Yet, if thefse persons 



^ TOBISHOPHUGHES. 63 

Eating meat. First step. Questions about the mass. 

should eat meat of any kind, or use gravy in any way, 
their consciences were troubled, and they must perform 
penance ! This led me to ask. Is this reasonable ? If 
I may eat meat on Thursday, why not on Friday ? Can 
Grod, in things of this kind, make that to be a sin on 
one day which is not on another ? I saw, also, persons 
for whose moral worth I had the highest regard, eating 
meats on those days, and without any injury ! And I 
came to the conclusion that your regulations upon this 
matter were unreasonable, and rejected them. And, 
as far as I now remember, this was my first step to- 
ward light and freedom. 

Whether our course is upward toward the region of 
light, or downward toward that of darkness, one step 
always prepares for another. Devoted to reading at 
this period of my life, I perused, without discrimina- 
tion, every thing that came in my way. Some book 
or tract, now forgotten, gave rise to some inquiries as 
to the Mass. I asked. What does it mean? I could 
not tell, though for years a regular attendant upon it. 
Why does the priest dress so ? What book does he 
read from when carried now to his right and now to 
his left ? What mean those candles burning at noon- 
day ? Why do I say prayers in Latin which I under- 
stand not ? Should I not know what I am saying 
when addressing my Maker ? Why bow down, and 
strike my breast, when the little bell rings ? What 
does it all mean ? The darkness of Egypt rested upon 
these questions. I thus reasoned with myself: G-od is 
a spiritual and intelligent being, and he requires an in- 
telligent worship. What worship I render him in the 



64 



KIR WAN's LETTERS 



How I reasoned. Farcical rite. Confession. 

Mass, I know not. My intelligent worship only is ac- 
ceptable to him, and is beneficial to me. I am a ra- 
tional being, and I degrade my nature and insult my 
Maker by offering to him a worship in which neither 
my reason nor His intelligence is consulted. Having 
come to this conclusion, I gave up the Mass as a su- 
perstitious form, well enough fitted for an idol, but un- 
fitted to be rendered by a rational being to the infinite- 
ly intelligent Jehovah. I have never been to Mass 
since, save out of curiosity to see how an ignorant peo- 
ple can be edified by what seems to me the most un- 
meaning and farcical of all the rites that ever man has 
devised ; and you know, sir, that, with all devotion 
and honesty, a Catholic may wait on your masses until 
his locks are as white as your surplice, and then pass 
into eternity without one single spiritual idea upon the 
subject of religion, resolving it all into external observ- 
ances. To test this point to the satisfaction of a friend, 
I recently asked an aged Irish papist, with whom I was 
acquainted, some questions as to the way to be saved, 
and no South Sea Islander could exhibit more entire 
ignorance on the whole subject. 

When I came to the above conclusion on the subject 
of the Mass, I experienced no great difficulty as to oth- 
er matters which passed rapidly in review before me. 
Must I go to confession? My prejudices said Yes; 
my reason said No ; and my logic was simply as fol- 
lows : If I truly repent of my sins, Grod will forgive 
me ; if I do not, the priest can not absolve me ; and I 
spurned as unreasonable, and as an insult to my com- 
mon sense, your terrible doctrine that " every Christian 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 65 

Horrible dogma. Transubstantiation. 

is bound, under pain of damnation^ to confess to a 
priest all his mortal sins, which, after diligent exam- 
ination, he can possibly remember ; yea, even his most 
secret sins — ^his very thoughts ; yea, and all the cir- 
cumstances of them which are of any moment." I 
ask you, sir, if this dogma of the Council of Trent is 
not a horrible dogma ? It suspends upon confessing to 
a priest what the Bible suspends on believing in Christ ! 
Do you, sir, believe it ? Can you believe it ? It is too 
monstrous a dogma to impose on an ignorant people. 

With yet greater abhorrence I gave up the doctrine 
of transubstantiation. As explained by Dr. Challo- 
ner, in his ^' Catholic Christian Instructed," chap. 5, it 
means ^' that the bread and wine are changed by the 
consecration into the body and blood of Christ ; and are 
so changed that Christ himself, true G-od and true man, 
is truly, really, and substantially present in the sacra- 
ment." "With this doctrine in view, I went to witness 
the administration of the Eucharist, as you call it. I 
went to Saint Peter's, in Barclay Street. The com- 
municants drew around the altar upon their knees. 
With a little box in his hand, the priest passed from 
one to the other, taking a wafer, smaller than that used 
in sealing a letter, from the box, and placing it upon 
the extended tongue of the communicant. I was al- 
ways taught that the teeth must not touch the wafer 
— ^that it must melt upon the tongue. This I find to 
be the law of your Church. I witnessed the ceremony, 
as I had often done before. I retired from the scene 
asking these questions : Is that little wafer the real 
body and blood of Christ? Does the priest, in that lit- 



66 



KIR WAN's LETTERS 



Questions about the wafer. A juggle. Leads to infidelity. 

tie box, not as large as a snuff-box, carry two or three 
hundred real bodies of Christ ? Do these communi- 
cants, each in their turn, eat the real body and blood 
of Christ ? My dear sir, I can not express to you the 
violence with which my mind rejected the absurdity. 
Look at it in what light you may, it is abhorrent to 
our common reason : it gives the lie to every sense 
with which Grod has endowed us. It is a wicked im- 
position. It is an impious priestly hoax, which, if 
practiced by a juggler, would subject him to the pen- 
alties of the law against blasphemy. 

Having gone through this process, not with a light 
and trifling, but with a serious mind, my prejudices 
rising in stormy rebellion against my convictions, I 
raised my eyes, and behold, my religion was gone ! 
The priest was a juggler, and his religion a fable ! 
Every thing that I had ever learned from parent and 
priest to esteem as religion was now rejected as false ; 
and not knowing but that this was all of religion that 
was in the world, I had no alternative but infidelity. 
I had no test of truth but my reason, and when I 
brought your system to that, I was compelled to reject 
it, not only as false, but as a monstrous absurdity, and 
with it all religion. 

Nor have I, dear sir, any hesitation in saying that 
the process of my own mind from popery to infidelity is 
that through which multitudes of minds have passed 
and are now passing. To an inquiring mind, which 
knows nothing of the Bible, infidelity is the fruit of 
popery. Hence, in papal countries, while the masses 
are superstitious and immoral, the intelligent and edu- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES, 67 

Papal countries* infidel. Ecclesiastics infidels. 

cated are infidel. If they sustain the vulgar rehgipn, 
it is for reasons of state. Hence the infidelity of 
France, of Spain, of Italy. At the present hour, the 
mind of these countries is more infidel than papal ; 
and this is true of every country on the globe where 
your religion prevails. It makes the masses supersti- 
tious, and the intelligent infidels. 

And permit me to say, my dear sir, in reference to 
yourself, that I have far too high a regard for your in- 
telligence to admit for a moment that you believe in 
the absurd doctrines which your Church teaches. Like 
the ancient priests of Egypt, you must have one class 
of opinions for the people, and another for yourself. 
Will you say that this is harsh and uncharitable? 
None knows better than yourself that history affirms 
it of popes, cardinals, and bishops that have lived be- 
fore you. Men far higher than you in your Church 
have laughed all its doctrines to scorn, and do so at 
this hour. They remain bishops, archbishops, or car- 
dinals for the sake of the loaves and fishes. On no 
other ground can I possibly account for your remain- 
ing an hour in the Roman Catholic Church. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 



68 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Proofs from the people. "Who go to confession or to mass ? 



LETTER V. 

Popery makes the Masses superstitious, the intelligent Infidels. — Who 
go to Confession 1 — Ireland. — France. — Other countries. — Reasons 
why Popery debases. — The Days of Popery numbered. 

My dear Sir J*— In my last letter, in which I stated 
to you the process of my mind in its transition from 
popery to infideUtyj I asserted that the effect of your 
religion is to make the masses superstitious, and the 
intelligent infidels, in all the countries where it pre- 
dominates. Although the truth of this assertion is self- 
evident to the well-read mind, the briefest considera- 
tion will make its truth apparent to all. 

How stands the matter in our own country ? Who 
attend your confessional and your masses in New York ? 
How many of the educated Irish, French, or G-ermans 
ever whisper at your knees their sins, or ever bow at 
your altars to receive your wafers on their tongues, be- 
lieving them to be '^ Jesus Christ himself, true Grod and 
true man," and believing that he is '^ truly, really, and 
substantially present" in them ? How many of these 
go to your churches ? Let any body wishing to know 
stand at the door of St. Peter's or St. Patrick's on the 
Sabbath, and examine the multitudes who attend these 
places, and they will soon learn. And even when an 
intelligent person is seen mixing with those who at- 
tend on your masses, he goes merely through the force 
of habit, or to wait upon a female relative. Permit 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 69 

How in Ireland ? How in France ? No God. 

me to say that, with an acquaintance somewhat ex- 
tended in our country, I know not a single layman, of 
any repute for learning or science, who believes in your 
distinguishing doctrines. There are some, I allow, of 
high standing and character who are nominally Cath- 
olics, but who, I learn, on inquiry, are but nominally 
so ; and the nominally Catholic is really an infidel. 

And how stands the case as to Ireland, the land of 
our birth, where seven of her nine millions of people 
are Roman Catholics ? "While its masses are with 
your Church, is not its mind in opposition to it ? And 
what has kept the mind of Ireland from being infidel 
but the fact that the religion of the Bible stands out 
there with a greater or less degree of prominence in op- 
position to the religion of the priest ? Thank Grod ! the 
Irish massacre did not exterminate Protestantism in 
the '' fairest isle of the ocean." 

And how stands the case in France, where your 
Church, Nero-like, extinguished the lights of truth, 
and caused the blood of the Huguenots to run like wa- 
ter? Popery has managed France in its own way, 
without any let or hindrance, and what has been the 
result ? It legislated God out of existence, decreed re- 
ligion to be a fable, and death to be an eternal sleep. 
Knowing nothing of religion but what it learned 
through the unmeaning rites of your Church, and by 
the carnal policy of your priests, it sought to erase ev- 
ery trace of it from existence ; and although France 
has recovered from the intoxication of the maddening 
bowl, and has risen to order from the wild chaos into 
which popery plunged it, its mind is yet infidel. Vol- 



70 K I R W A N ' S L E T T E R S 

Popery and the Revolution. Other countries. 

taire is the pope of the mind of France, and Sue is the 
high-priest of the people. Your dumb show of impos- 
ing ceremony is there esteemed, not as solemn, but 
farcical ; and upon your rites few attend save the peas- 
antry and the women. And the world should hold the 
papal Church accountable for all the horrors of the 
French Revolution. 

What is thus true of France is yet more true of the 
other papal countries of Europe. If the nobility of 
Spain, Portugal, Austria, or Italy are less infidel than 
in France, it is because they are less educated. Their 
masses are superstitious — their educated men, includ- 
ing many of their clergy, are infidels, and their men 
of fortune and spirit live without any moral restraint. 
Popery brings no strong moral influence to bear upon 
the mind and conscience of any people. In the pro- 
portion that its influence is strong do people and na- 
tions sink in the intellectual, social, and moral scale. 

That you yourself, dear sir, may see this, sit down 
and candidly compare Connaught and Ulster, in Ire- 
land. In the one, popery almost exclusively prevails ; 
in the other, Protestantism is in the ascendency. What 
a difference between them ! Compare Ireland and 
Scotland ; and, although the land of St. Patrick is far 
richer than that of St. Andrew, yet how heavenwide 
the difference between them ! Compare Spain with 
England, Italy with Prussia, Rome with Edinburgh, 
Belfast with Cork : how wide the difference ! Come 
across the Atlantic, and continue the comparison on 
our own Western Continent. Compare Mexico to New 
England, Brazil to these United States, the city of 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 71 

Contrasts. A general law. Abstracts the Bible. 

Mexico to that of Boston, or New York, or Cincinnati ! 
How great the contrast ! Come yet nearer home : 
compare the worshipers at St. Peter's, in Barclay Street, 
with those at St. Paul's, in Broadway ; compare the at- 
tendants on your own ministry at St. Patrick's with 
those who worship God at the Brick Church, or at La 
Fayette Place, or at University Place, or on the Fifth 
Avenue. How wide the difference intellectually, so- 
cially, morally ! And why is it that papal countries 
and communities thus suffer, and so sadly suffer, when 
contrasted with other communities where there is an 
unshackled conscience and an open Bible ? There 
must be some general law or cause in operation to 
produce results so uniform. What is that law or cause ? 
Sir, it is the influence of that system of religion which 
you are seeking with so much zeal and industry to ex- 
tend. The traveler in Europe need not be told when 
he crosses the lines that separate papal from Protestant 
states ; the obvious marks of higher civilization declare 
the transition with almost as much plainness as would 
a broad river or a chain of mountains. Popery, with 
infallible certainty, degrades man. Do you ask how ? 
In this wise : 

It takes from him the Bible, the revealed will of 
Grod, with all its clear light, with all its high motives 
to excite the soul to high and holy action, and without 
which neither civilization nor religion can be long 
maintained. Papal countries are countries without 
the Bible. I myself searched Rome and Naples in 
vain to find one. 

It withholds from the people all right moral instruc- 



72 kirwan's letters 

Withholds moral instruction and Christianity. 

tion ; it suppresses the preaching of the Gospel, and 
substitutes for it the dumb show of the Mass. The 
apostles turned the world upside down by preaching, 
but in papal countries there is generally no preaching. 
I never heard a sermon in a Catholic Church in Ire- 
land. I venture the assertion that there are multi- 
tudes of Catholic churches in Catholic countries where 
a sermon would be as great a rarity as would be the 
saying of mass in a Scottish kirk ! And is it not one 
of the seven wonders of the day that the present Pope, 
the pretended successor of that warm-hearted preacher, 
Peter, has preached a sermon^ the first preached by a 
pope in three hundred years ! ! Could Peter return to 
Rome, unless his long absence from the body has cool- 
ed his generous but impetuous spirit, I am afraid he 
would treat his pretended successors as roughly as he 
once did Malchus. 

It withholds from the people the benign influences 
of Christianity, the great element in the development 
of civilization. It withholds the Bible, the sermon ; it 
has instituted a worship which wants nothing of hea- 
thenism but the name. That worship is performed in 
a language now unspoken by any living people. It 
excludes all reading from the people but such as the 
priest permits. Acting on the principle that ignorance 
is the mother of devotion, it erects no schools for the 
instruction of the common mind ; it substitutes the 
feast-day for the Sabbath, the saints and the Virgin 
Mary for the Savior, confession and penances for faith 
in Christ, and reverence for places, unmeaning rites, 
relics, for the fear of G-od. Sir, I say it with deep sor- 



TOBISHOPHUGHES. 73 



It degrades poor Ireland. Its priests. 



row, popery is not Christianity.* It is a fearful per- 
version of the rehgion of God ; and for the evidence of 
these assertions I again point you to its influence upon 
the people where there is nothing to counteract it. It 
has degraded the once noble Castilian until there is 
now none so mean as to do him reverence ; Italy, once 
the seat of empire, it has reduced to feebleness ; and 
the once invincible Italian, who carried the eagles of 
his country to the extremes of the world, to an ignoble 
slave ; and it has rendered our noble-hearted, noble- 
minded, impulsive countrymen the hewers of wood 
and the drawers of water in all the countries to which 
they emigrate. The degradation of Ireland, which has 
made it a by- word, I charge upon popery. If the 
priests of Ireland would give the quarter of what they 
receive for praying souls out of Purgatory, or all they 
expend on whisky or at the card-table, to the sustain- 
ing of common schools among the people, there might 
be three or more such schools sustained in every parish 
in that bleeding, famishing, yet noble country, and its 
sons would have an opportunity of rising to that posi- 
tion to which their native wit, eloquence, and genius 
entitle them. 

These, sir, are, in brief, my reasons for asserting that 
the effect of your religion is to make the masses of 
your people superstitious. They have no intelligent 
views of G-od. They know nothing about the plan of 
salvation. Sacraments and ceremonies exert an unde- 
fined, mysterious influence. The priest exerts a ghost- 

* See my Letters to Chief Justice Taney for the proof and illustra- 
tion of this. 

D 



74 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

A withering reply. Popery doomed. All things against it. 

ly, fearful power, before which the ignorant beUever 
slavishly crouches, and of which he stands far more in 
awe than he does of the G-od who has made him. 

And the very causes which render the masses su- 
perstitious operate in an opposite direction upon the 
intelligent, and drive them into infidelity. They rea- 
son about your doctrines as the Earl of Mulgrave is 
said to have done with a priest who was sent to him 
by James II. of England, to convert him to popery. 
'' Sir," said he, '' I have convinced myself by much re- 
flection that God made man, but I can not believe that 
man can make God." How can you meet such a 
withering rebuke ? 

My dear sir, the days of popery are numbered. The 
Bible is against it ; civilization is against it ; the mind 
of the world is against it. Good people pray for its 
downfall as earnestly as they do for that of Moham- 
medanism. It may live through centuries yet to come, 
but it will be as Judaism now lives, or as paganism 
lived in many dark corners of the Roman world long 
after its conversion to the Christian faith. But my 
own fear is that the papal world, both as to its mind 
and its masses, will become suddenly infidel, as in 
France, and then pour down its legions upon the Church 
of God, to blot it out of existence. The Romish Church 
is one of the '' gates of hell" which has poured forth 
armies of the aliens in opposition to the Church of 
Christ, but it has never, nor will it ever, prevail against 
it. With respect, yours, Ktrwan. 



TOBISHOPHUGHES. 75 

Charge renewed. Ireland degraded. Evidence. 



LETTER VI. 

Popery has degraded Ireland. — Evidences of its Degradation. — Ab- 
senteeism. — Sub-letting. — Tithes. — The Priest's cry for Money. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter, in which I sought 
to illustrate that the influence of popery is to make the 
masses superstitious and the intelligent infidels in all 
the countries where it predominates, I made the fol- 
lowing assertion : " It has rendered our noble-hearted, 
noble-minded, impulsive countrymen the hewers of 
wood and the drawers of water in all the countries to 
which they emigrate. The degradation of Ireland, 
which has made it a by-word, I charge upon popery." 
To some of the evidences of the truth of these asser- 
tions I wish to call your attention in the present letter. 
Perhaps the present state of feeling in our country to- 
ward famine-stricken Ireland may secure for what I 
shall say to you some attention.^ 

That Ireland is a degraded country as to its masses, 
with all our pride of country, neither you nor I can 
deny. Its general poverty, its pervading ignorance, its 
mud hovels, its innumerable beggars, its insubordina- 
tion, are the sad and tangible proofe of its degradation. 
They lie upon the surface of the country, where every 
traveler can behold them ; and the untraveled Ameri- 
can has the evidences of this degradation brought to 

^ These letters w^ere written during the famine which raged in Ire- 
land durinof the vears 1847-8. 



76 KIR WAn's LETTERS 

Absenteeism. Its cause. Sub-letting. 

his own door. He sees it in the perfect ignorance of 
his Irish servant — in the squahd appearance of the 
Irish beggar*^ in the deep-rooted superstition of the 
Irish papist — in the Irish brawls in low tippling-houses 
— in the furious passions of an Irish mob — in the large 
proportion of Irish convicts in our prisons, and of vi- 
cious Irish in our places of moral reform. It is, my 
dear sir, with feelings of regret and shame that I make 
this statement. My love of country has never fprsaken 
me for an hour. With all its faults, I love Ireland 
still ; and in the lowest depths of their degradation, its 
children manifest a sensibility and a nobility that 
would honor those in the highest ranks of civiUzation, 
and that evince what they would be under a right de- 
velopment of their social and moral nature. What are 
the causes of this degradation ? 

I will not, I can not omit from the list of causes 
what is technically called absenteeism : the lordly pro- 
prietors of the land living in foreign countries, and ex- 
pending abroad the hard earnings of their tenants at 
home. This is one of the grievous curses of Ireland ; 
but even for this papists are to blame, whose frequent 
murders of landed proprietors induce them to seek 
safety in foreign countries. 

Nor can I omit the system of letting and sub-letting, 
or renting and sub-renting of the land, by the richer to 
the less rich, until between the owner and the actual 
cultivator there may be six or more landlords, each 
living upon those below him, and the actual tillers of 
the land supporting them all! This is infusing into 
the curse of absenteeism an ingredient which multi- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 77 

Tithes. Their abuse. Should be reformed. 

plies its bitterness by ten. It gives rise to a class of 
landlords as unpitying as famine. 

Nor can I omit the system of tithes for the support 
of the Established Church of Ireland. An Episcopal 
priest is placed in every parish in Ireland, and if he 
has not one single parishioner to wait on his ministra- 
tions, he is yet entitled to his tithes from the parish ; 
and these tithes are drawn from the actual cultivators 
of the soil, the poor tenants ; and these tithes are usu- 
ally let and sub-let, as is the land, and their collection 
generally falls into the hands of men as rapacious as 
vultures. Yes, and the parson for whose support these 
tithes are paid may be a thoroughly worthless man, 
and may never have made the impress of his foot upon 
the soil of his parish ! Yes, and when the tither calls 
upon the poor man to pay his tithes for the support of 
a minister he has never seen, and for the maintenance 
of a religion which his soul abhors, unless he is ready 
to pay, his only cow, more than one half the support of 
his family, is driven to the market, and there sold for 
half her value ! and if that does not pay, his pig is driven 
and sold in the same way ! Such is the system of tithes 
in Ireland ! I have no language, my dear sir, in which 
to express my abhorrence of it. The support of such 
a system, in the way it is there enforced, is a disgrace 
to the Protestant name ; it is a deep, dark, direful stain 
upon the equity of British legislation ; it is a public 
protest before heaven and earth against the Church 
that sanctions it, and against the craven-hearted, earth- 
ly-minded clergy that can submit to be thus supported ! 
I speak as an American ! Out of your own Church, 



78 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

A nuisance. Talleyrand. Why absenteeism ? 

sir, I know of no ecclesiastical nuisance so utterly of- 
fensive as that of the Established Church of Ireland ! 
And yet the very upholders of these schemes of rob- 
bery — yesj and some of the very individuals that pock- 
et the plunder thus legally and ecclesiastically filched 
from the poor people, write to us about public faith and 
honesty, and lecture us upon the subject of slavery as 
if they were spotless as Grabriel ! Of all this I can say, 
as Talleyrand is reported to have said of a lady that 
frequently annoyed him : '' Madam," said he, '' you 
have but one fault." '^ Pray, sir," said she, '^ what is 
it?" ^^It is," said he, '^that you are perfectly insuf- 
ferable." Nor have I seen, among the various plans 
suggested by the crown for the relief of Ireland, a hint 
at the abolition of this nefarious system of tithes as it 
bears upon the poor people who till the soil. 

Bad, my dear sir, as I think of these causes, and 
much as they have contributed to the degradation and 
impoverishing of Ireland, they are but as the dust of 
the balance when compared with the influences of 
popery ; and that yourself may see this, hear me to the 
close calmly and without prejudice. 

"Why this absenteeism, of which we so bitterly and 
justly complain ? I am not about to excuse it ; but 
one of its reasons is the opposition of the priest to the 
efforts of the land proprietor to elevate his tenantry, 
and the fierce jealousies which the priest excites in the 
minds of the people. There is but little absenteeism 
in Scotland : why is it so general in Ireland ? The 
cause we find in the difference of the religion of the 
two people. If the parish priest of Ireland was like 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 79 

Nothing to educate. Ignorance. The true cause. 

the parish minister of Scotland, the Marquis of Shgo 
and the Earl of Westmeath would have as pleasant a 
home upon their estates as the Duke of Buccleugh or 
the Marquis of Breadalbane. 

Popery does nothing for the education of the people 
of Ireland. With the wealth of the middling classes 
under its control, and almost at its beck, where are its 
schools and its colleges for the education of its people ? 
You send to Ireland for money to establish them here : 
why erect none there ? Connaught, where your Church 
has complete control, is an almost unbroken mass of 
ignorance ; and Munster is precisely hke it ; and these 
are the portions of it where the famine is now raging. 
Ignorance brutalizes, and sensualizes, and renders men 
improvident. It places our higher in subjection to our 
lower nature ; and in withholding education from the 
people, popery has degraded Ireland ; and wherever its 
children are carried by the tide of emigration, their 
want of education places them in the lowest grade of 
society, and they are more dreaded as a burden than 
hailed as an accession. "Without the high aspirations 
which knowledge imparts, and without the self-respect 
which it creates, they are satisfied with being menials 
where they might be masters, to be carriers of mortar 
where they might be chief builders on the wall. If 
the ignorance of Ireland has any thing to do with the 
degradation of Ireland, I charge that ignorance upon 
popery. Prove it false if you can. 

And if absenteeism, and sub-letting, and the tithe 
system do much to impoverish the people, popery does 
yet more. It meets them at the cradle, and dogs them 
to the gi'ave, and beyond it, with its demands for mon- 



80 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Money I money I The horse-leech process. 

ey. When the child is baptized, the priest must have 
money ; when the mother is churched, the priest must 
have money ; when the hoy is confirmed, the bishop 
must have money ; when he goes to confession, the 
priest must have money ; when he partakes of the Eu- 
charist, the priest must have money ; when visited in 
sickness, the priest must have money. If he wants a 
charm against sickness or the witches, he must pay 
for it money. When he is buried, his friends must pay 
money. After mass is said over his remains, a plate 
is placed on the coffin, and the people collected togeth- 
er on the occasion are expected to deposit their contri- 
bution on the plate. Thus pounds are collected for 
burying the poorest of the people. Then the priest 
pockets the money, and the people take the body to the 
grave ; and then, however good the person, his soul 
must go to Purgatory ; and however bad, his soul may 
have stopped there. And then comes the money for 
prayers and masses for dehverance from Purgatory, 
which prayers and masses are continued as long as the 
money continues to be paid. Masses are yet said for 
people who died hundreds of years ago. Now, when 
we remember that seven out of the nine millions of 
the people of Ireland are papists, and of the most big- 
oted stamp, and that this horse-leech process of collect- 
ing money, whose ceaseless cry is '' give^ give^'' is in 
operation in every parish, and that, as far as possible, 
every individual is subjected to it, can we wonder at 
the poverty and the degradation of Ireland ? Can we 
wonder that its noble-hearted, noble-minded people are 
every where hewers of wood and drawers of water ? 
Shame, shame upon your Church, that it treats a peo- 



T O B I S H O P H U G H E S. 81 

Shame ! shame ! Terrible protest. A type. 

pie so confiding and faithful so basely ! Shame, shame 
upon it, that it does so little to elevate a people that 
contribute so freely to its support ! popery, thou 
hast debased my country — ^thou hast impoverished its 
people — thou hast enslaved its mind ! From the hod- 
man on the ladder — from the digger of the canal — 
from the hostler in the stable— from the unlettered cook 
in the kitchen and maid in the parlor — from the rioter 
in the street — from the culprit at the bar — from the 
state prisoner in his lonely dungeon — from the victim 
of a righteous law^ stepping into eternity from the gal- 
lows for a murder committed under the delirium of 
passion or whisky, I hear a protest against thee as the 
great cause of the deep degradation of as noble a peo- 
ple as any upon which the sun shines in the circuit of 
its glorious way ! 

My dear sir, your religion is for the benefit of the 
priest, and not that of the people. It will starve the 
people to fatten the priest. Its object is not to spread 
light, but darkness ; not to advance civilization, but to 
retard it ; not to elevate, but to depress man, that he 
may the more readily be brought under your influ- 
ence ; and we have in Ireland a type of what our hap- 
py land will be when the priest wields the power here 
which he wields there. 

I own, dear sir, that I have digressed a little from 
my original object in these letters. But in my next I 
shall commence with the reasons which, on the most 
mature reflection, yet prevent me from returning to 
the pale of your Church. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 

D2 



82 KIR WAn's LETTERS 

Who need detail. The question. The Bible. 



LETTER VII. 

Reasons for not returning to the Papal Church. — Prohibition of the 
Scriptures. — The Way and Manner of Papal Worship — Ceremonial 
Law of Popery. — Obstructions raised between God and the Soul. 

My dear Sir, — ^Agreeably to the promise made to 
you in my last letter, I now commence a statement of 
the reasons which, on the most mature reflection, yet 
prevent me from returning to the pale of your Church. 
I wish to avoid prolixity of statement and minuteness 
of detail, as I feel that I am addressing one who can 
see the point and weigh the force of an argument with- 
out either. Detail is only needed by the stupid. 

"When, in the kind providence of God, my mind be- 
came interested to know what Grod would have me to 
do, I cast around for a true guide to the solution of the 
question. Where could I find such a one ? Books are 
written by fallible men ; priests had already imposed 
on my understanding ; fond parents, deceived them- 
selves, taught me superstition for religion ; all men 
are liable to err. I felt there was a Grod, and that I 
was bound to obey him ; but where is the rule of my 
obedience ? This was the question. I was told of the 
Bible, but of that I knew nothing ; and then I knew 
the Bible to be by your Church a prohibited book, or 
to be read only by priestly permission. I sought the 
Bible, and read it. I found it to be the true and only 
guide to the right solution of the question as to what 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 83 



Confession of sin. The Bible. Why prohibited. 

God would have me to do ; and, without the fear of 
the Pope, or of the anathemas of the Council of Trent, 
and without a line of license from prelate or priest, I 
have continued to read it for years. If this is mortal 
sin, I am daily living in its commission. Thus far I 
will confess to you. And the virtual prohibition of the 
unfettered reading of the Bible by your Church is one 
of the main reasons why I can not return to it. That 
your restrictions amount to a virtual prohibition, your 
candor will not for a moment deny. 

And let me ask you, dear sir, why this virtual pro- 
hibition ? Who has given you authority to say that I 
must not read what God has given to direct me into 
all the ways of faith and obedience ? God has com- 
manded me to " search the Scriptures :" who has given 
you authority to forbid me ? "What right have you 
to forbid me more than I have to forbid you ? Produce 
your credentials ! Where does God place his revealed 
will in the keeping of Pope, prelate, or priest, to be 
doled out to his erring children in such ways and par- 
cels as they may deem best ? He has no more placed 
the Bible under your control, or that of your Church, 
than he has the sun in heaven, or the vital air, or the 
gushing fountains of pure water. Nor can I conceive 
of any principle that can possibly induce you to with- 
hold it from the people, without gloss or comment, save 
one : '' Every one that doeth evil hateth the light, 
neither cometh to light, lest his deeds should be re- 
proved." It is said that Herod, when convinced that 
he was not of the royal line of the Jews, burned their 
genealogies and records, that his false pretenses might 



84 K I R W A N ' S LETTERS 



Herod's conduct. Public worship. At mass. 

not be confuted hj them. Is it for a similar reason 
that your Church withholds the Bible from the people ? 
The Bible lays the axe at the root of the upas-tree of 
popery : is this the reason why it is withheld ? If you 
reply to these letters, will you tell us plainly why it is 
withheld ? 

Another of the reasons which prevent me from re- 
turning to your Church is the way and the manner of 
your public worship of God. On reading the New 
Testament, I find that Jesus Christ embraced every 
opportunity of declaring the will of Grod. After his 
ascension and the descent of the Spirit, the apostles 
went every where preaching the Grospel of the king- 
dom. The worship of God, as taught us in the New 
Testament, consists in prayer, praise, and the preach- 
ing of his word for the instruction and edification of 
the people. To the instruction and edification of the 
saints every thing in the Church of Christ is made 
subservient. Is it so in the Church of Rome ? Do 
your masses convey any instruction to the common or 
the uncommon mind ? Do they ever give — have they 
ever given one true idea of God or of religion to a hu- 
man soul ? If so, I should like to know it. May not 
individuals attend upon them from youth to gray hairs, 
and yet know not the first principles of the doctrines 
of Christ ? I have attended recently, sir, a High Mass 
at one of your cathedrals. It was on the last Christ- 
mas day, and in the Cathedral at Baltimore. I bore 
the unmeaning pageant for three mortal hours togeth- 
er. There w^as the archbishop in his robes, with his 
cap, his crook, and his crosier ; there were priests in 



T O B I S H O P H U G H E S. 85 



A pantomime. A question. Stones for bread- 

numbers, moving about, making their crosses, obei- 
sances, and genuflexions. When the bishop rose, the 
crook and crosier moved before him, and the priests, as 
waiters, went behind him ; the book was shifted from 
side to side, and was read and chanted in ways that 
no mortal hearer could comprehend. There was the 
raising of the Host, and the bowing down of the peo- 
ple — the incense, and all the other usual accompani- 
ments of such a service ; and it struck me as one of 
the most farcical pantomimes that I ever witnessed. 
Forgive this honest statement, if it is within your pow- 
er of absolution. I left the house without receiving a 
solitary religious suggestion, and puzzled and confound- 
ed for a solution to the question how intelligent men 
could possibly submit to act such a farce, and to pass 
it off upon a crowd of poor-looking people for the sol- 
emn worship of God. And if your Mass, when thus 
performed with all the splendor and pomp of your rit- 
ual, is thus unmeaning, how insipid must it be when 
performed in your country chapels by ignorant priests, 
who hunt up the sheep only to shear off their wool ! 
God, my dear sir, is an intelHgent God ; he has given 
me intelligence with which to worship him. For the 
intelligence within me, either as to its increase or ex- 
ercise, your Church makes no provision in its public 
worship. I must not, then, return to your Church, 
and seek to have my soul, made for the inhabitation 
of the Spirit, satisfied with the mummery of your mut- 
tered masses in the public worship of my God. My 
soul craves bread, and you give it stones. 

Another of the reasons which prevent me from re- 



86 KIR AVAN's LETTERS 

Crushing conscience. Almanac. Whence your power. 

turning to your Church is the burdens which it places 
en my conscience, which crush without correcting it. 
It institutes a kind of a ceremonial law, which restricts 
where God has given liberty, and which licenses where 
God has prohibited indulgence. With your fast and 
feast days, who can keep up without an almanac in 
his hands ? and how many of your people can read it ? 
Should I blunder in counting the days of the week, 
and, mistaking Friday for Thursday, eat meat, my 
conscience is wounded. If, in performing penance, I 
miscount my beads, and say a less number of pater- 
nosters than required, my conscience again suffers. If, 
ignorant of the " Laws of Lent," which have been just 
published by you, I should eat three meals on a day 
between " Ash "Wednesday and Easter Sunday," or 
should eat meat on the " Thursday next after Ash 
Wednesday," or on '' any day in the Holy Week," my 
conscience would be again burdened. And these are 
but specimens of the thousand and one ceremonial reg- 
ulations of your Church, as burdensome as they are 
unmeaning, which fret and crush the conscience with- 
out directing or strengthening it ; and while thus re- 
stricted in things indifferent, I am freely indulged in 
things which the divine law prohibits. 

Now, sir, who has given you authority to make laws 
where God has made none ? Where is the law in the 
statute-book for your Lents, your feast-days, your fast- 
days, your Easter days? Why fast or feast at one 
time more than another ? Who has given you author- 
ity to say what I shall eat, or how often, in any one 
day of the year ? What unutterable arrogance to tell 



T O B I S H O P H U G H E S. 87 

Arrogance. Mint, anise. Be a man. 



me I can not eat fish and flesh at the same meal ; what 
priestly intolerance to tell me, with my Bible open be- 
fore me, that if I transgress these laws I sin against 
my God ! You know that the Gospel is a law of lib- 
erty ; you know that if a man eat meat he is not the 
worse, and that if he refrain he is not the better ; you 
know that ihe Bible teaches that man is defiled, not by 
that which entereth into him, but by that which Com- 
eth out of him ; and why burden souls and fetter con- 
sciences by silly enactments about things in themselves 
indifferent, and about which God has made no regu- 
lations ? Oh, sir, like the Scribes and the Pharisees of 
old, you are busied about the mint, the anise, and the 
cumin, forgetful of the weightier matters of the law ; 
and I deeply regret that a man who has forced him- 
self up to station and influence against so many ad- 
verse circumstances, had not force enough to break the 
chains of early religious prejudice, to rise up to the re- 
gion of intellectual, and moral, and religious freedom ! 
You are too much of a man to stoop to such nonsense. 
I would leave such things to those who know no bet- 
ter. Even at the risk of your mitre and princely in- 
come, you should give such chaff to the winds of 
heaven. 

On these subjects, dear sir, your Church must return 
to the standard of the Bible and of common sense be- 
fore I can return to it. 

Another of the reasons which prevent my return is 
the obstructions which your Church raises between me 
and my God. My Bible — that hated book by Pope, 
prelate, priest, and papal peasant — ^teaches me that if 



88 



kirwan's letters 



A free privilege Round about. If 1 pay. 

any man sin, he has an advocate with the Father, Je- 
sus Christ. It every where teaches me that I may 
have free access to G-od through Jesus Christ ; that if 
I sin, I may go for pardon directly to the throne of 
God, through the mediation of his Son ; and this is a 
precious privilege — a privilege which may be enjoyed 
by all, '^ without money and without priced Now, 
what do you ask of me to do in order to receive the 
forgiveness of sin, and to be restored to the favor of 
God? You send me to Peter or Paul, or some other 
saint on the catalogue, who may have never known 
me, and who may never hear me if I pray unto them ; 
or you send me to Mary, whom you blasphemously 
call the Mother of G-od, to ask her to intercede for me. 
Nor will this suffice. I must go to your confessional, 
and tell you all my sins, incurring the fearful penalty 
of refusal of pardon if I withhold one. Thus you take 
from me the privilege of going to G-od for myself — a 
privilege purchased for me by the death of Christ. 
You tell me I must go to the priest, and from the priest 
to the saint or to the Virgin, and the saint or Virgin 
will go for me to the Savior, and he will go for me to 
the Father ! and then, when pardon is granted, it goes 
from the Father to the Son, from him to the saint or 
Virgin, from him or her to the priest ; and when in the 
hands of the priest, he will give me absolution— -z/ 
I pay for it ! Will you say, dare you say that this 
is a caricature of your teachings upon this matter ? 
Would to God you could with truth ! Why send me 
to the saints, to ask them to intercede for me, if this is 
untrue ? That I am a sinner, I know and feel ; that 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 89 

Precious doctrine. Proxy. Toll-gates. 

there is pardon for me through the atonement of Jesus 
Christ, on my repentance and faith, is a precious doc- 
trine of the Bible and of my creed. That pardon I re- 
ceive the moment I sincerely exercise the graces of re- 
pentance and faith — yes, and not a whit the less freely 
if all of you, Pope, patriarchs, prelates, and priests, 
were with Pharaoh and his chariots. 

And why turn me away from the door of mercy, and 
compel me to speak to my heavenly Father by proxy ? 
Why call me away from the cross, and send me to a 
priest, or a saint, or a virgin, to ask them to do for me 
what I can better do for myself? Where has my Sav- 
ior taught me that I can only address him through a 
priestly attorney, that I must fee, however poor, for his 
services? Oh, ask me to do any thing — to bail the 
ocean, to tame the hurricane, to arrest the sun, rather 
than ask me to return to your Church until every 
thing is removed which forbids the free access of my 
soul to my G-od — which suspends my salvation on any 
thing else than repentance toward God, and faith in 
our Lord Jesus Christ. You must pull down your 
toll-gates on the way of life before you see me back. 

The statement of a few additional reasons I hope to 
give you in my next. 

With respect, yours, Km wan 



90 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Supererogation. Commandments of men. 



LETTER VIII. 

Farther Reasons for not returning to the Papal Church. — Celibacy of 
the Clergy. — Auricular Confessions. — A call on Irish Papists to as- 
sert their Rights. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter I entered on the 
statement of the reasons which yet prevent me from 
returning to the pale of your Church. I adverted only 
to four : your virtual prohibition of the Bible ; the way 
and manner of your public worship of God ; your cere- 
monial law, which burdens and crushes without in- 
structing or correcting the conscience, and the obstruc- 
tions which you erect between my soul and my Grod. 
These, or either of them, would be reason sufficient, 
not merely to excuse, but to forbid my ever returning 
to your communion. For me to give farther reasons 
would seem to be a little like your doctrine of superer- 
ogation, which is not among the least of the absurd er- 
rors of your infallible Church ; but as the argument is 
conclusive, you will bear with me while I proceed to 
the statement of a few others. 

I can not return to your Church until you cease 
teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. Per- 
mit me here to say, dear sir, that, without a solitary 
exception, the things which are peculiar to your Church 
— the things which make it distinctively what it is, 
are the commandments of men, either in direct opposi- 
tion to the teachings of the Bible, or based upon the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 91 

Clerical celibacy. Peter married. Why not Pius IX. 

most gross perversion of its meaning. In as brief a 
manner as possible, permit me to illustrate this position. 

Your Church teaches and enjoins the celibacy of its 
clergy in language the most pointed and positive, and 
the Council of Trent hurls its anathemas against all 
who would assert the contrary doctrine, or who would 
admit the lawfulness of the marriage of a priest. Thus 
you forbid the priest to marry ; you damn him if he 
doe*s marry, and you anathematize all who think or 
say that in marrying he sinned not against Grod or 
man. All this, you admit, is so. Now, then, I ask 
your authority for so teaching. I ask, not your eccle^ 
siastical, but your scriptural authority. Did not the 
Jewish priests marry ? Was not Peter your first Pope ? 
This you assert. And was not Peter's wife's mother 
sick of a fever ? — Matt., viii., 14. Pope Peter, then, had 
a wife. Why would it be a mortal sin in Pope Pius 
IX. to have one also ? Would he be the less pious or 
moral on that account ? You, sir, are a bishop. How 
far you are a scriptural bishop is not now the inquiry. 
But Paul, in writing to Timothy, says, " A bishop must 
be the husband of one wife .... having his children 
in subjection with aU gravity." And even poor " dea- 
cons," the lowest order of your ministry, are thus in- 
structed by Paul: ^' Let the deacons be the husbands 
of one wife, ruhng their children and their own houses 
well."— 1 Tim., iii., 12. 

Now, dear sir, put these things together, and see in 
what a position they place you ! Peter, your first Pope, 
had a wife, and you damn to the depths of perdition 
any pope that would, in this respect, follow Pope Peter ! 



92 KIR WAN's LETTERS 



How found out ? An inference. Confession. 

Challoner says that he had no commerce with his wife 
after he was made an apostle ! ! Will you tell me how 
Challoner found that out ? Deacons and bishops are 
commanded^ or, at least, permitted to have wives, and 
you would empty the seven vials of your wrath, and 
pour all the anathemas of Trent upon the head of the 
priest or bishop that, in obeying God, would disobey 
your Church I Is it possible for you and the Bible to 
be in more direct opposition ? Is it wrong to conclude 
that, in thus forbidding to marry, your Church gives at 
least one evidence that it is Antichrist ? Will you fa- 
vor me, dear sir, with a common-sense exposition of 
the meaning of Paul, 1 Tim., iv., 3, where he brands 
" forbidding to marry" as a doctrine of '' devils ?" If 
half as literal in the exposition of Paul as in your ex- 
position of '^ this is my body," '' this is my blood," how 
will jovl avoid the inference that you are a devil? 
Pray remember I do not say you are a devil ; if you 
were, you would not believe half you say you do. I 
am only holding you to your own principles. 

Again : your Church enjoins confession under the 
most stringent rules. To this I have already adverted 
in former letters. I advert to it again, to illustrate how 
you teach for doctrines the commandments of men. 
The Council of Trent teaches that ^4t is the duty of 
every man who hath fallen after baptism to confess his 
sins at least once a year to a priest." It teaches that 
*' this confession of sin is to be secret, for public confes- 
sion is neither commanded nor expedient." It teaches 
that "this confession of sin must be very exact and 
particular, together with all circumstances, and that it 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 93 

Absolution. Thankfulness. A few questions. 

extend to the most secret sins, even of thought, or 
against the ninth or tenth commandment." You know 
you omit the second commandment, which forbids your 
bowing to pictures and images, and divide the tenth 
into two, so as to make up the ninth and tenth, and 
thus complete the number. On receiving confession 
as thus ordained, the priest pronounces absolution u^on 
the penitent, '^not conditional or declarative only, but 
absolute and judicial." When I remember the use 
which your Church has made of this doctrine, and the 
fearful power which it gives the priest over the people, 
my heart swells with emotion as I pen these lines ; 
and, like the angel of Manoah's sacrifice, my thanks- 
givings ascend to heaven that I have escaped the snare 
of the fowler. 

Now, sir, let me again turn querist, and ask you. 
Where in the Bible do you find your doctrine of auric- 
ular confession taught ? With me, the teachings of all 
your councils weigh not a feather. G-ive me, if you 
can, Bible authority. Is there one text, from Grenesis 
to Revelation, which you, as a scholar, will say teaches 
it ? I put this question to you, not as a bishop, but as 
a scholar. A priest from Maynooth, taught there only 
to mumble the Missal, or a poor unlettered peasant 
from Mayo or G-alway, into whose lips w^ords are put, 
as into the mouth of a parrot, might quote to me James, 
v., 16, which says, ^' Confess your faults one to anoth- 
er" — ^but will 7/ou do it ? They might tell me that the 
Pharisees were baptized of John Baptist, " confessing 
their sins ;" that at Ephesus, '' many that believed 
came and confessed, and showed their deeds" — but will 



94 KIRWAn's LETTERS 

Reciprocal confession. Irish reciprocity. Judas. 

you do it ? If James is your authority, are not you 
bound to confess to me, if I am to you ? " Confess 
your faults one to another .^''^ if this text teaches auric- 
ular confession, I hold you to it. "When did you put the 
poor Irishman, who whispered his sins into your ears, 
in your seat in the confessional, and, kneeling down 
outside, whisper through the little square hole cut in 
its side your sins into his ear ? This would be con- 
fessing your sins one to another. This would be re- 
ciprocal confession ; but yours is a true Irish reciprocity 
— all on one side. Did you ever do this, sir ? Never, 
never. I ask you again, not as a bishop, but as a 
scholar, whether a single text quoted by Challoner, or 
Butler, or Hay, gives a shadow of countenance to your 
doctrine of confession ? Lay aside your mitre, your 
crosier, your crook, and your canonicals, and look at 
those texts as simple John Hughes, and then answer 
my question. How can you account to man or to G-od 
for the erection of such an awful institution as Auric- 
ular Confession, upon the merest perversion of Scrip- 
ture — a perversion which has neither sense nor wit to 
excuse it, and without a solitary text or example in the 
Bible to sustain it ? Oh, why will you do as a priest 
what you would not do as a scholar or as a man ? 

And, then, what aggravates the whole matter is, that 
every man who is made a priest, no matter how igno- 
rant or wicked, feels himself divinely appointed of Heav- 
en to confess sinners, and to absolve them from their 
sins ! No matter if he is a Judas, he has the same au- 
thority to confess and absolve as Peter ! A priest, sir, 
under your own jurisdiction," and, I am sorry to say, an 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 95 

A wretched priest. An exhortation. 

TTishman also, was heard thus to address the hostler of 
the hotel at which he boarded on returning from Mass 
on Sabbath afternoon : '' Pat, get up my horse ; I have 
to go and confess a poor devil who is dying five or six 
miles out in the country." I would not say this wretch 
is a fair sample of all your priests : I hope otherwise. 
But there are too many like him ! And he has the 
same power to confess and absolve that you have, 
against whose character I know nothing, save that you 
sustain a system which you must know to be as false 
as the Koran. 

I would implore you, my dear sir, to review this doc- 
trine of your Church. As to the "Word of G-od, it is 
baseless as the fabric of a vision. It was unknown in 
the Jewish Church; it is untaught in the Christian 
Scriptures. It crept into your Church during the Dark 
Ages. It was nailed upon it at Trent. It is clearly a 
device of man, and in terrible opposition to some of the 
plainest precepts of Grod's word. It gives power to the 
priest, and enslaves the people. It has been to your 
Church, in every land, a fearful source of corruption. 
Every thing is beneath you but the truth. Reject the 
lie, however long it may have been told, and however 
it may increase your income and influence. No longer 
prostitute your talents and education in maintaining 
this religious juggle, but send the sinner to the cross, 
telling him that whosoever shall th^re confess and for- 
sake his sin shall find mercy. In this thing show your- 
self a man, and the blessings of unborn generations 
will be upon you. 

And could I address myself to every papist upon 



96 K I R W A N ' S L E T T E R S 

Confession a device. Absolution. An appeal. 



whom the sun shines, I would say to them all, and es- 
pecially to those of your country and mine, the doctrine 
of confession is a priestly device to gain an absolute 
authority over your consciences. You are no more 
bound to confess to a priest than he is to confess to 
you. And as to the doctrine of absolution connected 
with confession, it is simple blasphemy. Grod only can 
forgive sin. And were it not for the fees connected 
with your confession and absolution, there is not a 
priest upon the face of the earth that would care a straw 
about your confession, or that would commit the blas- 
phemy of forgiving your sins. If bishops or priests 
will not, in this day of light, cut in pieces the net wove 
in the Dark Ages to confine and trammel you, it is in 
your power to rise and tear it in pieces. Irish Roman 
Catholics ! our fathers fought, and bled, and died to 
obtain for themselves and for us civil liberty. Their 
blood, shed by British bayonets in these struggles for 
their civil rights, have crimsoned every stream and fat- 
tened every field of Ireland. And will you, their sons, 
bow your necks to a priestly tyranny, which debases 
you mentally and morally ? "Will you give yourselves 
to be led, and rode, and robbed by priests who come to 
you pretending that the keys of heaven hang by their 
girdle, and that it is with them to let you in or shut 
you out at pleasure ? No man can be a slave while 
his soul is free, nor can any man be free while his 
soul is in bondage. 

There is, reverend sir, one confession which I freely 
make to you ; my spirit waxes warm when I think or 
write upon the absurdities of your Church — upon its 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 97 

A confession. Bad business. The Irish not Jesuits. 

flagrant perversions of the Scriptures — upon its shame- 
ful impositions upon the ignorant and credulous — ^upon 
the unblushing eflrontery with which it teaches for di- 
vine doctrines the commandments of men. And I as- 
sure you that my warmth of feeling is not diminished 
when I consider that a man of your character and 
country could consent to he a chief workman in this 
bad business. I am ashamed for you. Irishmen have 
their faults, but they are not usually those of duplici- 
ty, or perversion of the truth ; and hence, while they 
make good papists, they make bad Jesuits. Do any 
thing rather than thus traffic in souls. 

I regret to find that I must end this letter without 
ending my illustrations of the way and manner in 
which you teach for doctrines the commandments of 
men. This I hope to do in my next. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 

E 



98 KIR WAn's LETTERS 

Purgatory. Made for the middling Suffrages. 



LETTER IX. 

Reasons which prevent from returning to the Papal Church continued. 
— Purgatory. — Transubstantiation. 

My dear Sir, — I will proceed with the statement 
of the reasons which prevent me from returning to the 
pale of your Church. I have reached my fifth reason : 
your teaching for doctrines of divine authority the com- 
mandments of men. I entered upon the illustration 
of the way in which you do this in my last, and, with- 
out ending my illustrations, ended my letter. Permit 
me to state a few more for your candid consideration. 

The doctrine of Purgatory is one of the peculiar 
doctrines of your Church. You teach that nearly all 
Christians, when they die, are " neither so perfectly 
pure and clean as to exempt them from the least spot 
or stain, nor yet so unhappy as to die under the guilt 
of unrepented deadly sin." It is for these middling' 
Christians that you make a Purgatory, where they re- 
main until they make full satisfaction for sin, and then 
they go to heaven. And the '^Profession of Faith" of 
Pius IV. tells us that " the souls therein detained are 
helped by the suffrages of the faithful — that is, hy the 
prayers and the alms offered for them, and principally 
by the holy sacrifice of the Mass." And the doctrine 
of your Church is so expounded upon this matter, that 
but few, if any, die, however good, without needing 
purgatorial purification ; and that but few are so bad 
but that they may be there fitted for heaven. This, 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 99 

All sent there. Its value. Proof texts. 

you will admit, is a fair statement. The miore you 
get into Purgatory, the more you will receive of the 
" suffrages of the faithful" — ^that is, of their money. 

I have already told you my estimate of this doctrine. 
It is that by which your Church traffics in the souls 
of men, and an amazingly profitable traffic it makes 
of it. It has placed in your possession riches far ex- 
ceeding in value the mines of Peru ; and because of 
the value of this doctrine, you seek in all possible ways 
to sustain it. With me the authority of your popes 
and councils is not worth a penny. I would rather 
have one text of Scripture bearing upon the point than 
the teachings of as many such as you could string be- 
tween here and Jupiter. Let us, then, look at the 
chief texts adduced to sustain a Purgatory. 

One of these texts is Matt., xii., 32 : '' Whosoever 
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be for- 
given him, neither in this world, neither in the world 
to come." Matt., v., 26, is another: ^'Verily I say 
unto thee, thou shalt by no means come out thence till 
thou hast paid the uttermost farthing." Both these, 
you say, refer to Purgatory. From the one you con- 
clude that sins may be forgiven in the next world; 
from the other, that none can get out of Purgatory till 
the last farthing is paid. Now, dear sir, let me ask 
you how you put these texts together? If sins are 
forgiven, how or why is payment also required to the 
last farthing ? Can I forgive a debt, and yet require 
its payment ? Look at the first text again ; you find 
Purgatory in it, but how ? In this way : because there 
is a sin which will not be forgiven in this world nor in 



100 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Logic. Mohammed's coffin Challcner. 



the world to come, therefore there is a sin that will 
he forgiven in the world to come ! ! Such is the logic 
of infallible Rome ! Because a certain sin is not to be 
forgiven here or hereafter, therefore many sins will 
be forgiven hereafter! and because "this, world" and 
" the world to come" is inclusive of all time and place, 
popery builds up a place which belongs neither to this 
world nor to the world to come, and fills it with fire, 
and calls it Purgatory ! Like Mohammed's coffin, it 
floats somewhere between heaven and hell. Into this 
world of fire you drive the souls of men as they leave 
the body, and let them out only on the reception of 
" the suffrages of the faithful" — that is, their money ! 
Now, sir, what do you say to all this ? Is it not too 
bad? 

But, you ask, are there not other texts quoted by 
our writers to sustain Purgatory as a scriptural institu- 
tion ? Oh, yes ; they are as far from the point as the 
most vivid imagination can well conceive. They are 
by the diameter of the heavens farther from the point 
than those just quoted. Let any intelligent man read 
chapter xiv. of Challoner's " Catholic Christian," and 
he will rise from it with amazement that God could 
ever leave men to the folly of so perverting Scripture, 
or that even the devil could permit them so absurdly 
to misapply it, as absurdity does not always suit his 
purpose. Permit me to quote an instance by way of 
illustration. We are taught in Matt., xii., 36, that 
we must give an account for every idle word in the 
day of judgment. Now, how does this text prove a 
Purgatory ? In this wise : "No one can think that 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 101 

Not joking. Alms and other suflfrages. Questions. 

Grod will condemn a soul to hell for every idle word ; 
therefore there must be a Purgatory to punish those 
guilty of these little transgressions." If you or any 
mortal man think I am joking, turn to the chapter. 
Let me quote the answer in full to the question, ''Are 
not souls in Purgatory capable of relief in that state ?" 
^' Yes, they are, but not for any thing that they can do 
for themselves, but from the prayer s^ alms^ and other 
suffrages offered to God for them by the faithful upon 
earth, which God in his mercy is pleased to accept 
of by reason of that communion which we have with 
them by being fellow-members of the same body of 
the Church, under the same head, which is Jesus 
Christ." Now, sir, if in this answer you substitute 
the word ''priest" for "God," then we come to the 
facts in the case. The " alms" and the other " suf- 
frages of the faithful" are pocketed by the priest ; and 
Purgatory was invented for the special purpose of se- 
curing these alms and other suffrages of the faithful to 
Pope, prelates, and priests. 

Now, sir, let me ask you a few questions. Perhaps 
I have asked you too many already, but you will bear 
with a fellow-countryman, anxious, not so much to 
embarrass you, as to bring out the truth. What has 
the blood of Christ, which cleanses from all sin, to do 
with the venial sins of those middling Christians who 
die, not good enough to go to heaven, nor bad enough 
to go to hell ? What has the blood of Christ, his atone- 
ment, his finished work, at all to do, on your plan, with 
the saving of the sinner ? If my child should die and 
go to Purgatory, would a thousand dollars given to you 



102 kirwan's letters 

Hail Mary. Sickening. History. 

at once have the same effect as a hundred dollars a 
year for ten years ? How can you tell when enough 
is given to get the soul out, or has your purse no bot- 
tom ? As souls are spirits without bodies, how can 
you tell one soul from another as they issue from the 
gates of Purgatory ? In the prayer " Hail Mary !" we 
are made to utter at its conclusion the following peti- 
tion : '' Holy Mary, Mother of G-od, pray for us sinners, 
now and at the hour of our death.^^ Why not solicit 
her to pray for us after our death, to get us out of 
Purgatory? Is it because you are afraid the good 
woman would get us out before the priests had gotten 
enough of the '^ alms and suffrages of the faithful ?" 

My dear sir, the absurdities connected with your 
doctrine of Purgatory are sickening. It is based on 
the love of money. The Bishop of Air candidly con- 
fesses that it is not revealed in the Scriptures. It came 
into the Church in the seventh century, it was affirm- 
ed in the twelfth, it was stereotyped at Trent, and fear- 
ful anathemas are hurled at all who deny it. It puts 
away the work of Jesus Christ, and sends the sinner, 
not to '' the blood of sprinkling," but to the fire of Pur- 
gatory, in order to secure a meetness for heaven. And 
why this parody — this caricature of the religion of 
God ? Simply to put '^the alms and the suffrages of 
the faithful" in the pockets of your priests ! What an 
outrage upon the common sense of the world to have 
men, dressed up in canonicals, teaching things as true 
of which the beast that Balaam rode might well be 
ashamed, and all, all for the sake of money ! 

I entreat you, my dear sir, to review this doctrine 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 103 

Father O'Leary. Transubstantiation defined. 

of your Church. You surely must see its absurdity. 
Neither in the "Word of God, nor in the common reason 
of man, is there the shadow of an argument to sustain 
it ; nor is there a class of men upon the face of the 
earth who deserve a Purgatory from which '' the alms 
and other suffrages of the faithful" would never release 
them, as do those who preach up a Purgatory and its 
fearful torments for the sake of filthy lucre ; but, as 
Father O'Leary said to Canning, ^^ I am afraid many 
of them will go farther and fare worse." My respect 
for you renders me solicitous that you should not be 
of the number. I wish you not to be one of the dumb 
herd who hold the truth in unrighteousness, and be- 
lieve a lie that they may be damned. 

Transubstantiation is another of the peculiar doc- 
trines of your Church. By this you teach that, in the 
Lord's Supper, the bread and the wine are converted 
into the real body and blood of Christ by the consecra- 
tion of the priest. The thing is so absurd as to confute 
itself, and as, therefore, to require from me but a brief 
statement. Challoner, chapter v., thus states the doc- 
trine : '' The bread and wine are changed by the con- 
secration into the body and blood of Christ," ''Is it, 
then, the belief of the Church that Jesus Christ him- 
self, true God and true man, is truly, really, and sub- 
stantially present in the blessed sacrament ? It is ; for 
where the body and blood of Christ are, there his soul 
also and his divinity needs be ; and, consequently, 
there must be whole Christ, God and man : there is no 
taking him to pieces." And all this is proven to dem- 
onstration by the quoting of the words of Christ at the 



104 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

"Is" and "this." Common sense. More questions. 

institution of the Supper, " This is my body," '' This 
is my blood." 

Now, sir, if you and your Church had only the com- 
mon sense to look for the true meaning of the two lit- 
tle words " is" and " this" in the above sentences of 
the Savior, it would have saved you a world of trouble. 
Look at one or two similar passages : '' The seven good 
kine are seven years — and the seven good ears are sev- 
en years." — Gren., xli., 26. ^' The seven stars are the 
angels of the seven churches." — Rev., i., 20. " The 
seven heads are the seven mountains." — Rev., xvii., 9. 
The sense is plain here. They signify those things. 
So the word '^ is" may mean to signify. Now for the 
word '^ this." It obviously refers to the bread. I will 
have none of your nonsense about ^' the substance con- 
tained under the species." It is darkening counsel by 
words without knowledge. So that the simple, natu- 
ral, reasonable, scriptural sense is, " This bread signi- 
fies or represents my body" — '' this wine signifies or 
represents my blood." Just see how a little common 
sense simplifies every thing ! 

Now, turning back to your interpretation, permit 
me, in view of it, to ask you a few questions. Did the 
apostles, at the first institution of the Supper, eat the 
real body and blood of Christ ? So your Church must 
and does teach ! What power have you, more than I 
have, to work such a miracle as to change a little wa- 
fer into the real body and blood of Christ? If you 
stickle so much for the letter in your interpretation of 
'' This is my body," '' This is my blood," why with- 
hold the wine from all but the priests ? "Why give up 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 105 

Arsenic. Strait jacket. Good nonsense 

the bread for a wafer ? If some wag should mix ar- 
senic with the wafer before consecration, would you be 
willing to take it after you had changed it into the real 
body and blood of Christ ? You place great dependence 
on John, vi., 56. You take it literally. "Will you take 
the whole connection literally ? Then he that eateth 
this bread shall live forever. He that eats this bread 
will never hunger. All that you will have to do, if 
your principle is true, is to give your wafer to the poor, 
famishing Irish, and they hunger no more ! 

But the thing is too outrageously absurd to dwell 
upon ! Nothing equals it in absurdity in all paganism. 
If a man should mumble a few words over a stone, and 
teU you it was converted by these words into bread, 
what would you say to him ? If, against all the evi- 
dences of your senses, he should seriously assert that it 
was bread ; and if, in addition, he should seriously as- 
sert that, unless you believed that stone to be bread, 
you must be damned, would you not be for putting 
him in a strait jacket ? 

But I must bring this letter to a close. These are 
but a few of the illustrations of the way and manner 
in which you teach for doctrines the commandments 
of men. And without at all exhausting the subject, I 
must here close my statement of the reasons which for- 
bid me to return to the pale of your Church. When I 
give up my Bible for the commandments of men, they 
must have learning, or genius, or wit, or something to 
recommend them. They must be, at least, good non- 
sense, which, you know, to an Irishman, is quite inter- 
esting. With respect, yours, Kirwan. 

E 2 



106 kirwan's letters 

Reasons frankly given. Questions as to the Church 



LETTER X. 

Is the Church of Rome a Church of Christ t 

My dear Sir, — I have, with all frankness and hon- 
esty, stated to you the reasons which yet prevent me 
from returning to the pale of your Church ; and al- 
though I have stated but five, which are scarcely a 
tithe of those which press themselves forward for ut- 
terance, yet, if not to you, they are to myself, and I 
think are to all unbiased minds, entirely sufficient. I 
have even the faith to believe that you yourself will 
deem them sufiicient ; and that, were it not for the pe- 
culiarity of your position, and your plighted oath to 
sustain your Church, right or wrong, they would have 
the same efiect upon your mind and conduct that 
they have upon mine. There must be an awful con- 
flict between conscience and duty when we find our- 
selves in a false position which we are sworn to main- 
tain. "With me the conflict would be of brief contin- 
uance ; I would follow conscience at all hazards. 

While reviewing and weighing these reasons, the 
questions have arisen before my mind. Is the Roman 
Catholic a church of Christ? Has it so far departed 
from the truth, or so grievously perverted it, as to for- 
feit all claim to that title ? These are questions of 
grave import, which I will not undertake to decide. 
But 1 wish to state to you, in the present letter, how 
some things bearing on these questions strike me, and 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 107 



Church organization. Whence yours. Answer, 

then I will submit the decision of them to yourself. 
To this, surely, you will make no objection. 

The external organization of your Church is obvi- 
ously not that taught by Christ and his apostles. As 
to this matter, every thing in the Bible is simple. The 
kingdom of Christ is not of outward observation — ^its 
seat is in the hearts and affections of men — its ele- 
ments are righteousness, and peace, and joy in the 
Holy Grhost. The great object of the apostles and first 
preachers of the doctrines of Christ was to win men to 
the belief and to the practice of the truth. When men 
believed the truth, they were baptized, and were thus 
introduced into the communion of the saints ; and not 
a word is said about popes, patriarchs, cardinals, metro- 
politans, prelates, or of the duty of implicit obedience 
to their authority. There is a government enjoined, 
but it is as free and as simple as one can well conceive ; 
while yours is as despotic, and as absurdly pompous as 
one can well imagine. As your external organization 
is not taught in the Bible, where did you get it ? 

The answer to this question to my mind is plain. 
As the early Church advanced in numbers, influence, 
and wealth, it gradually lost the martyr spirit of its 
founders. Its ministers became corrupt, secular, and 
ambitious. By degrees, bishops, from an office, be- 
came an order. As Rome was the metropolis of the 
world, and as it was there that the greatest number of 
martyrs had shed their blood, the bishop of the metro- 
politan city soon became pre-eminent among his breth- 
ren. Now the state sought the influence of the Church 
to assist in maintaining its authority, and the Church 



108 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Church and state Caesar and the Pope. 

sought the influence of the state to assist in building 
up its ghostly dominion. Each yielded to the request 
of the other. The Church rapidly extended, and the 
ambition of priests conceived the idea of governing it 
after the model of the state. Rome must be the cen- 
tre of ecclesiastical as of civil pov^er. The state had 
its Csesar, the Church must have its Pope. Csesar 
had his governors of provinces, the Pope must have 
his patriarchs. The governors had their subordinates, 
and these again theirs, down to the very lowest office ; 
so that the patriarchs had their archbishops, these their 
bishops, and these their priests, and so down to the 
very lowest office in the Church. As in the state all 
civil authority emanated from Csesar, and all disputes 
were finally referable to him, so in the Church all ec- 
clesiastical authority emanated from the Pope, and he 
was made the final judge of all disputes. Here, sir, 
is the origin of your ecclesiastical government ; and, 
did the limits of a letter permit, I could run out this 
parallel into some details which even to you would be 
striking and confounding. Your ecclesiastical organi- 
zation has just the same divine warrant that that of 
Mohammedanism or Hindooism has — Grod permits it. 
The Roman empire has passed away; ages ago its 
mangled limbs were strewn over the earth ; but in 
that ecclesiastical organization called Popery we have 
the living model of that form of government by which 
the Csesars bound the nations of the earth to their 
thrones, and by which they were enabled to crush, at 
the extremes of the world, every effort to break the 
yoke of servitude. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 109 

Maynooth boys, Forms of worship. Did Peter so / 

How far all this bears upon the question whether 
yours is a church of Christ, I submit to your candid 
decision. "When weighing this matter, I wouH entreat 
you not to jeopardize your standing as a scholar and as 
a man of sense by any reference to " Thou art Peter, 
and upon this rock I build my Church." Leave that 
thing to the boys from Maynooth, with long coats and 
short brains. 

The forms and method of your public worship are 
obviously not those taught us in the Bible. I enter 
your church. Saint Patrick's, to worship G-od. I am 
required to sprinkle myself with holy water, and to 
make on myself the sign of the cross. And why, or 
for what purpose ? That I may be defended from un- 
clean spirits ! "What ! unclean spirits in Saint Pat- 
rick's ! I look around me, and I see a forest of can- 
dles burning upon the altar. And for what purpose ? 
"Where is this commanded ? I see people counting their 
beads, and praying before pictures. Where is this 
taught ? Now comes out a priest in his robes embroi- 
dered with crosses. Did Peter or Paul wear such things 
when teaching Jews and Grentiles the faith of Christ ? 
He says nothing to the people, but goes through the 
Mass in Latin, of which I may know nothing. Was 
this the way Peter and Paul did ? Then come out 
boys in white frocks, with their censers, offering in- 
cense to the priest, and filling the church with the odor. 
Were Peter and Paul thus incensed ? The priest goes 
through the service, bowing, and kissing the altar, now 
lifting up his hands, now his eyes ; now speaking in a 
whisper, now in full voice, according to the rules laid 



110 kirwan's letters 

Heathen ceremony. You a successor I The Bible. 

down. Now, sir, where did you get these things ? And, 
after the ceremony is over, I again cross myself with 
holy water and retire. This is your public worship of 
Grod every where, and from age to age, save that in 
this country there is a sermon on sticking to Mother 
Church sometimes added. Have you the most distant 
idea that it was in this way the first Christians wor- 
shiped G-od ? The manner of your public worship is 
not scriptural or Christian ; it is heathen, and was 
originally adopted for the seducing of the heathen to 
Christianity. If Peter or Paul could be introduced to 
Saint Patrick's when you were going through High 
Mass, and were told that you were one of their suc- 
cessors, what would be their astonishment ! "What ! 
you a successor of the men who lived by catching fish, 
and mending nets, and making tents ! ! and that farce 
in which you are a chief actor every Sabbath, the ex- 
act counterpart of the worship instituted by the apos- 
tles ! ! Have you the most remote idea that it was 
thus Peter, and Paul, and the other apostles and first 
ministers of the Word subverted the idolatry of the 
Roman world ? Your manner of public worship is not 
only unscriptural, but in direct opposition to Scripture ; 
it wants nothing of heathenism but the name ; and 
how far all this bears upon the question whether yours 
is a church of Christ, I submit to your candid decision. 
The Bible is Grod's revealed will to teach us what 
we should believe and do. This Bible your Church 
has corrupted, and labors to suppress. You mix up 
with the pure "Word of Grod the Apocrypha, which lays 
no claim to inspiration, and whose internal evidences 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. Ill 

Apocrypha. Notes. India-rubber traditions. 

are fatal to such a claim. I need here only mention 
the recommendation of the angel in Tobit, to make 
smoke out of the heart and liver of a fish to scare 
devils out of men ! And yet this Apocrypha is of 
more use to you than all the Bible besides. You mu- 
tilate the Ten Commandments written on stone by the 
finger of Grod! You mistranslate the Scriptures in 
numerous passages, to bring out your peculiar doc- 
trines, or to conceal its testimony against them ; and 
where the point of Scripture can not be broken or 
blunted, you put a note at the bottom in explanation. 
And what notes ! Take the following as an illustra- 
tion, appended to Rom., iv., 7 : '' Blessed are they 
whose iniquities are forgiven, and whose sins are cov- 
ered." " That is. Blessed are those who, by doing pen- 
ance, have obtained pardon and remission of their sins, 
and also are covered — that is, newly covered with the 
habit of grace, and vested with the stole of charity." 
Can there be any thing more luminous or edifying? 
Nor is the work of corruption yet done. You superadd 
to all this your traditions, which, like a piece of India- 
rubber, you can stretch or contract to suit your pur- 
pose. Nor can the Bible, when all this is done, be put 
into promiscuous circulation, lest, with all these addi- 
tions and corruptions, some might understand it as 
teaching some things in opposition to popery ! You 
tell the poor Irishman that his spade and hod are bet-, 
ter suited to him than the Bible, and the poor Irish- 
woman that she had better keep at her broom and 
wash-tub than trouble herself about the Grospels ! 
"When you corrupt the Bible to the extent of your abil- 



112 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Mistake of God. A sail. Why stop at seven 1 

ity — when you add to it every thing you can or dare, 
even then you keep it from the people ! Why thus 
fearful of the Bible ? You seem to act as if Grod made 
an awful mistake in giving the Bible to any—save the 
priests ! 

Now, sir, how far all this bears upon the question 
whether yours is a church of Christ, I submit to your 
own decision. As far as you can, you strive to sup- 
plant the Bible as the only rule of faith ; and as far as 
I am concerned, I would as soon strive to sail from 
England to Ireland on St. Patrick's milestone as strive 
to get to heaven by that which you would give me as 
a substitute for the Bible ; but I wish not to forestall 
your decision. 

The sacraments, instituted in condescension to our 
weakness, are outward and sensible signs of inward 
and spiritual grace. These, as the Bible, you have en- 
larged and corrupted. Christ and his apostles left us 
but two ; you multiply them by three, and carry one. 
I only wonder how your ingenuity permitted you to 
stop at seven ! Here you have allowed a Dr. Deacon, 
a dull Englishman, and, I believe, a Protestant in the 
bargain, to surpass you. He adds exorcism, the white 
garment, a taste of milk and honey, &c. How easily 
you might have gone on to seven, or even seventy 
times seven! But, in addition to multiplying, you 
have most grievously corrupted the two that are taught 
us in the New Testament. In baptism you dip or pour 
three times : where is this taught ? Ordinarily you 
permit it only to be administered in churches which 
have fonts, the water of which is to be blessed every 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 113 

Where get this ? Miserable exorcism. Exalted faith. 

year on the vigils of Easter and Whitsunday ! Where 
do you get this ? Where is your warrant for the ab- 
surd practice of godfathers and godmothers ? The priest 
blows three times upon the face of the person to be 
baptized, saying, '' Depart out of him or her, unclean 
spirit, and give place to the Holy Grhost :" where did 
you get this ? He then puts a grain of blessed salt 
into the mouth ; then he exorcises the unclean spirit, 
because the devil must go out before the person is in- 
troduced into the Church ! then he wets his finger with 
his spittle, and touches, first, the ears, saying, " Eph- 
phatha;" then his nostrils, saying, " Unto the odor of 
sweetness." " Be thou put to flight, devil!" And 
when baptized, a white cloth is put on his head, and a 
candle in his hand. Now whence all these things ? Is 
this a heathen ceremxony or Christian baptism ? 

Bad as all this is, it is strong common sense when 
compared with your corruption of the Lord's Supper. 
The bread and wine are rejected for a wafer ; that wa- 
fer is converted into God ; the wafer-god is first wor- 
shiped, and then eaten ! and to believe all this shows 
great exaltation of faith and piety ! Some things would 
appear very pious were they not so absurd and ludi- 
crous. 

Now, sir, how far this multiplication and corruption 
of the sacraments of the Christian religion enters into 
the question whether or not yours is a church of Christ, 
I submit again to your own decision. 

Nor have you permitted a single leading doctrine of 
the Bible to. escape your efforts to pervert them. 

The Bible holds up one G-od as the sole object of re- 



114 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Objects of worship. Other intercessors. The doctrines corrupted. 

ligious worship. You teach us to worship the Virgin, 
the Host, the cross, and to adore angels, departed saints, 
rehcs, and even pictures. 

The Bible teaches that our only access to Grod is 
through a Redeemer, Jesus Christ, who is made unto 
us of God, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctifica- 
tion, and redemption, and that through faith in his 
name we are made partakers of the blessings of his 
work of redemption. You teach that there are other 
intercessors to whom we must apply^^that our own 
works are efficacious to save us — that the sacraments 
have inherent power to save — that faith in Christ is 
not the true method of justification. 

The Bible teaches that we must be born again, cre- 
ated anew by the Holy Grhost. This you denounce as 
a false and accursed doctrine, and teach us that we are 
regenerated by baptism, and kept in a state of salva- 
tion by confirmation, confession, penance, fasts, and 
alms. 

The Bible plainly teaches that when we die we go to 
heaven or to hell, like Lazarus and the rich man ; that 
our probation is confined to the present state. You 
teach us that there is a third state. Purgatory, where 
souls are purified from the stains of venial sins, and 
thus prepared for heaven ; and so on to the end of the 
chapter. 

Such, reverend sir, is the way in which some things 
strike me bearing on the question whether yours is or 
is not a church of Christ. That there are many papists 
truly pious, I believe. But whether a church fash- 
ioned, as is yours, as to its external organization after 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 115 



The grave question. Sir Matthew Hale. 

the Roman state when governed by military despots — 
departing, in its public worship, in every essential par- 
ticular, from that taught in the Scriptures ; whether 
a church which corrupts and suppresses the Bible — 
which corrupts its sacraments and its doctrines, is a 
church of Christ, this — this is the grave question which 
I now submit to your decision. It is said that a ques- 
tion involving a vast amount of property was once sub- 
mitted to Sir Matthew Hale. Before giving his opin- 
ion, he was approached by the lordly defendant in the 
case with a bribe. He repulsed him with great indig- 
nation. His lordship complained of him to the king, 
and the reply of his majesty was, " Sir Matthew makes 
his decisions without fear or favor : he would treat me 
in the same way." 

All I ask of you is to decide the above question with 
the honesty of Sir Matthew. 

With the above views in reference to your priests 
and your Church, you need not wonder when Protest- 
ants denounce both as they do. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 



116 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Messiah's kingdom. Prophecies. Unity of teaching. 



LETTER XL 

The Effects of Popery on Liberty, Knowledge, Happiness, true 

Religion. 

My dear Sir,— In my last letter I submitted to your 
decision the question whether or not the Roman Cath- 
olic is a church of Christ, after briefly stating to you 
how some things bearing on its truthful decision strike 
me. I design the present letter to have no very remote 
bearing upon the same question, and would ask you 
to give it the degree of consideration to which, in can- 
dor, you may deem its statements entitled. 

In reading the prophecies of the Old Testament, I 
find that they all speak with the most glowing antici- 
pations of the yet future kingdom of Messiah. That 
kingdom was to produce the civil, moral, and spir- 
itual renovation of the world. When I turn over to 
the New Testament, I find that, on the birth of Mes- 
siah, the angel of the Lord stated to the shepherds 
that he came to bring them good tidings of great joy 
which should be to all people. And having announced 
the birth of the Savior in the city of David, he was sud- 
denly joined by a multitude of angels, singing " Grlory 
to Grod in the highest, and on earth peace, good- will to- 
ward men." The Old Testament and the New — ^patri- 
archs, prophets, and apostles, all unite in teaching us 
that the effect of Christianity upon our world would be 
to restore it to its primeval state, and to reinstamp upon 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 117 

Fruits. Human liberty. Mental liberty. 

the heart of man the lost image of his Creator. Now, 
how far has popery fulfilled these predictions, and the 
reasonable expectations of the faithful founded on 
them ? In otjier words, what are the fruits of popery ? 
Our Savior tells us that a good tree yields good fruit— « 
a bad tree, bad fruit. And with this test in view, my 
object in the present letter is to state to you how some 
things strike me. 

What has been the effect of popery upon human lib- 
erty ? Permit me to use the word '' liberty" in its 
widest sense. As to civil liberty, it has been its un- 
changing enemy. It has never permitted a spark of 
liberty to glow for an hour when it could extinguish it. 
There is not in Europe at the present hour — perhaps 
not on earth — a greater civil despot than the Pope. 
The man that, in Italy, writes a page or makes a 
speech in favor of liberty, must fly the kingdom, or be 
dragged to a dungeon. And we are to judge of popery, 
not by its pliability where it can not rule, but by the 
way in which it shows its heart where it can do so 
without let or hinderance. Kings as well as people 
have groaned under its tyranny. Henry lY. of Grer- 
many was made by the Pope to stand three days in the 
open air, with bare head and feet. Frederick I. was 
made to hold his stirrup. He caused Henry II. of En- 
gland to be scourged on the tomb of Thomas a Becket. 
And the present state of Spain, Austria, Italy, shows 
the effects of popery on civil liberty. 

It is equally the foe of mental liberty. The Bible is 
without any authority save what your Church gives it. 
And the Bible must teach nothing save what your 



118 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Galileo. Human knowledge. Golden Age. 

Church allows. And man must believe nothing save 
what the priest permits. And philosophy must teach 
nothing save what the Church sanctions. You know 
that for this last offense Galileo was sent to study as- 
tronomy in prison. Pure popery and real liberty nev- 
er have breathed, and never can^ the same atmosphere. 
The principle of your Church is to allow nothing that 
bows not to its yoke. 

What has been the effect of popery upon human 
knoivledge ? When Christianity, like a new sun, rose 
upon the world, there was much that might be called 
education in the Roman empire. The obvious effect 
of Christianity was to extend it. After the lapse of 
some ages, popery, by gradual stages, crept, serpent- 
like, to the high places of power. How soon afterward 
the lights of learning go out — ^how soon the Dark Ages 
commence, and roll on as if they were never to end ! 
And those centuries of darkness form the Golden Age 
of your Church. And what spirit did it manifest on 
the revival of learning in Europe after the sacking of 
Constantinople, and at the Reformation ? Leo X. pro- 
hibited every book translated from the Greek and He- 
brew. This blow was aimed at the Bible. He for- 
bade the reading of every book published by the Re- 
formers. He excommunicated all who read an heret- 
ical work. The Inquisitors prohibited every book pub- 
lished by sixty-two different printers, and all books 
printed by any printer who had ever published a book 
of heresy ! Nor has one of these prohibitions ever 
been recalled. At this hour, the noblest products of 
human genius are under the ban of your Church, 






TO BISHOP HUGHES. 119 

National ignorance. Resealed. Happiness of our race. 

and the Index Expur gator ius is in full operation at 
Rome ! 

And what has been the effect of all this upon human 
knowledge ? Look into the countries for an answer 
where your Church rules undisturbed. The nobles 
and the people in Spain, Portugal, Austria, Sardinia, 
Sicily, are sunk into almost the same state of igno- 
rance. Upon the intellectual degradation of Catholic 
Ireland I have already dwelt. The Book of books, 
which the Lamb died to unseal, your Church has re- 
sealed ; it has laid an embargo upon human knowl- 
edge ; it allows the people to read only what it per- 
mits, and it permits only what tends to rivet its chains, 
and to perpetuate the darkness which is its natural 
element. When the Reformation occurred, the retro- 
grade movement of the world toward ignorance, and 
barbarism, and idolatry had almost been completed. 
Had it not occurred, a radiance might continue to gild 
the high places of the earth after the G-ospel sun had 
set — a twilight might be protracted for a few ages, in 
which a few might grope their way to heaven, but each 
age would have come wrapped in a deeper and yet 
deeper gloom, until impenetrable darkness had fallen 
on the world. Even the degree of knowledge which 
has obtained in the papal world, it owes to the Refor- 
mation. 

And what has been the effect of popery upon the 
happiness of our race ? This is a question of wide 
bearing, yet I can do little more than glance at it. 
Has it ever laid out its energies for the promotion of 
human happiness ? If so, when and where ? Has it 



120 kirwan's letters 

Always opposed. Fearful pathway. Its commission. 

not, on the other hand, set itself in opposition to every 
thing calculated to promote it ? Does general intelli- 
gence promote it ? Your Church has always opposed 
it. Does the free circulation of the "Word of God pro- 
mote it ? You have opposed this also. Does the in- 
culcation of pure religion promote it ? You have pois- 
oned or closed up all its fountains. Does advancing 
civilization promote it ? Your efforts are untiring to 
reverse its wheels, and to roll us hack to the" darkness 
of the Dark Ages, whose very light was darkness. But 
what can I say more ? for the time would fail me to 
tell of your monasteries • and nunneries, of the wars 
which popery has excited, of its Crusades, of the bitter 
jealousies it has sown between states, of the oceans of 
blood it has shed to obtain its objects, of the Inquisi- 
tions it has erected to torture the unbelieving, and of 
the way and manner in which it has caused those of 
whom the world was not worthy to have trial of cruel 
mockings and scourgings — yea, moreover, of bonds and 
imprisonment ; how it caused them to be stoned, to be 
sawn asunder, to be slain with the sword, to wander 
about in deserts and in mountains, in dens and caves 
of the earth. Oh, sir, the pathway of popery through 
the world is marked by the blood and bones of its vic- 
tims. It has gone into the earth feeling that Joshua's 
commission on entering Canaan was in its pocket, and 
that all who questioned its authority were Hittites and 
Amorites ; and, almost without a figure of speech, it 
can be said that the nations which it found as the gar- 
den of the Lord it converted into a howling wilderness. 
I know not that human happiness or human improve- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 121 

Cliristian charity. Witnesses. Plague-spots. 

merit have ever had a more determined foe than pop- 
ery. 

What is the influence of popery as to the exercise 
of Christian charity ? By charity I mean, not alms- 
giving, nor yet the love of God which the Spirit in- 
spires in the soul, but that grace which induces love 
to those who differ from us, and to cast a mantle over 
their defects. The Bible teaches us to do good to all 
as we find opportunity — ^to love our enemies — to treat 
with kindness those who despitefuUy persecute us. 
How does your Church obey these injunctions of Christ 
the Lord ? Let your Inquisitions, your auto da fe^s^ 
your Bartholomew's day, your Irish massacre, your 
yearly anathemas against heretics, your consigning to 
perdition all beyond the pale of your Church, answer. 
All non-papists you place beyond the pale of mercy ; 
you refuse their bodies Christian burial, if such your 
burial can be called ; you convert into the bitterest 
enemies of the man that becomes a Bible Christian 
those of his own household ; you make the poor Irish 
servant to feel that his master and her mistress are the 
enemies of G-od, however pious, whose reading of the 
Bible and whose prayers to heaven can not be heard 
without committing great sin ; you enact a ceremonial 
law, and proclaim that all who submit not to it are 
speckled with plague-spots ; and hence your priests, 
wherever located in Protestant communities, instead 
of going about as men to promote the general welfare, 
move about as spectres, as if afraid of the light of day ; 
here abstracting a child from a Sunday-school, there 
burning a Bible ; here poisoning the mind of a servant 

F 



122 KIR WAN's lettp:kis 

How it looks. True religion. Bewildered. 

against his master, and there that of a maid against 
her mistress, and seeking to place all, save his own un- 
lettered followers, like the lepers of Samaria, without 
the city of God. Does this look like the spirit of 
Christ? 

What is the influence of popery on true religion ? 
To this point I have already spoken. I have told you, 
sir, how it has corrupted our rule of faith, and the sac- 
raments, and the doctrines of the Bible. This is but 
the theory of the matter. Oh, how can I speak of its 
practical effects ? The religion of Christ it has con- 
verted into a system of idolatry, in which Grod and 
witches, the Bible and traditions, canons, decretals, the 
worship of God and of saints, the mediation of Christ 
and of Mary, prayer and scourging, pious deeds, pen- 
ances, and processions, are all of like authority and like 
efficacy! 

The mind of the poor papist it fills, not with light 
and love, but with darkness and fear. It closes to him 
the way to heaven through the blood of Christ, and 
opens it through the fires of Purgatory. Leaving him 
in doubt as to where he will succeed best, he now 
prays for pardon to God — now to the Virgin — now to 
Peter or Paul — now to some old picture almost oblit- 
erated by age, believing alike the truths of Scripture 
and the absurdities of your system, and knowing little 
of either. 

It impresses the poor papist with the idea that relig- 
ion consists, not in love to God and man, but in exter- 
nal submission to rites and forms. Hence the Spaniard 
will go to confession with his dagger under his man- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 123 

Mass and pot-house. But little difference. 

tie, and the poor, generous Irishman will go from the 
Mass and Missal to the pot-house, and from the confess- 
sion-box to the card-table and the boxing match ! and 
your Inquisitors have gone out from your Eucharist tc 
kindle the fires which consumed your heretics and our 
martyrs, and which illumined their pathway to glory ! 

But I must stop, lest my emotions swell beyond due 
bounds. 

These, reverend sir, are some, and but some, of the 
fruits of your system. How do they appear to you 
when thus brought together ? Is the tree which bears 
these fruits good or bad ? Has popery in any one par- 
ticular, in any one country, or in any age, ever pro- 
duced the results which prophets and apostles have 
told us the religion of Messiah would produce ? If not, 
are not popery and Christianity not only different, but 
antagonist systems ? Popery is paganism under a new 
name, and the difference between their priests is as 
little as is the difference between the systems. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 



124 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

First appearance. What think you ? Were it not. 



LETTER XII. 

Conclusion of the whole matter. 

My dear Sir,- — The letters which I have had the 
honor of addressing to you I must now bring to a close. 
I have stated to you, with all frankness and sincerity, 
my reasons for leaving the Church in which I was 
horn, baptized, and confirmed, and which, on the most 
mature deliberation, yet prevent me from returning to 
it. I can assure you, on the word of an Irishman, and, 
which is far more, on the word of a Christian, that I 
have had no end in view but the exposure of error and 
the development of the truth. Thirty years have al- 
most run their course since I left your Church ; and 
although not utterly unknown to the men of our age, 
nor unsolicited, these letters form my first appearance 
on popery. Unless some unexpected ripple is excited 
on the current of my feelings, they will probably form 
my last. 

Now, dear sir, what think you of these reasons ? 
Are they or are they not sufficient to excuse, to forbid 
my return to your Church ? Had I an ear sufficiently 
acute to hear the decision of your conscience, I believe 
in my soul that it pronounces them sufficient. Yes, I 
believe that, were it not for your sad doctrine of infal- 
libility, which stereotypes and perpetuates every ab- 
surdity, you, and multitudes like you, men of sense 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 125 

Firebrand. Slow progress. Appeal. 

and education, would rise and cast a firebrand amid 
the rubbish which ignorance and wickedness have, in 
the progress of ages, collected around your Church, and 
send its smoke heavenward like the smoke of a fur- 
nace. But, sir, I am not ignorant of the slow progress 
of truth against bigotry — of the great difficulty of ex-' 
changing bad opinions and customs, hallowed by usage, 
for better ones ; nor have I read history so inattentive- 
ly as not to learn from it the great difficulty of con- 
verting high ecclesiastics to the knowledge of the truth. 
The mitre has shielded many a head from the weapons 
of sense and logic ; and under the surplice many a 
conscience has gone to rest that, without it, would have 
contended to the death for the faith once delivered to 
the saints. I must not forget that it was the high- 
priest who occupied Moses' seat that put our Lord to 
death ; nor can I forget that those claiming to be the 
successors of Peter and the vicegerents of Christ have 
been the greatest persecutors of the saints. They have 
shed Christian blood enough for pope and cardinals to 
swim in. Would to G-od that vou could see thinofs as 
I see them ; your influence would be strong in freeing 
our fellow-countrymen from that bondage of the soul 
which most degrades them. But, despairing of this, I 
turn from you to the victims of your system. 

Roman Catholics, and especially Irish Roman Cath- 
olics, to you I now turn. From your bishop, whom, 
with you, I respect as a man, though I oppose his re- 
ligious principles, I appeal to you. "With you is the 
power to bring to a perpetual end that system of ghost- 
ly tyranny, the most oppressive that man has ever felt. 



126 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Jugglery will cease. Sympathies. Put away childish things. 

Subjects and sceptres depart together ; the farce of the 
Mass will soon end when there are none to witness it 
or pay for it, and popes, bishops, and priests will soon 
seek an honest calling when there are none to be edi- 
fied by their jugglery — ^when ^'the alms and the suf- 
frages of the faithful" cease to flow. 

Will you give an honest perusal to these letters, and 
candidly weigh the reasons and the arguments which 
they contain ? That I was born in Ireland is my pride. 
My sympathies are all with Ireland in its civil, social, 
and moral degradation. The blood of my kindred, shed 
to defend it against oppression, mingles with its soil. 
Your present feelings as to your Church I have had, 
and in all their force. I can entirely appreciate them. 
I have cordially hated Protestantism and Protestants, 
and I have seen the time when I regarded the man as 
my personal enemy who would utter a word against 
my rehgion ; but those were the days of my youth and 
of my ignorance. When I became a man, I put away 
childish things ; and my reasons for so doing are spread 
out before you in these letters, and all I ask of you is 
kindly and candidly to consider them, and then to act 
accordingly. If they are not sufficiently cogent to 
cause you, as they have caused me, to leave the Church 
of Rome, then you will have my entire consent to be 
oppressed, fleeced, and ridden by your priests as long 
as you can bear the operation. 

Yet permit me to entreat you to give to the subject 
of these letters the attention which it demands. I 
know that many of you are sincere, but this is no test 
of truth. I know many of you to be devout, but so 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 127 

Yet strangers. Robbed, Assert your rights. 

are Mohammedans and pagans. I know that many 
of you are prepared to make any sacrifice which reUg- 
ion demands ; hut we may give all our goods to feed 
the poor, and our hodies to he hurned, and yet he stran- 
gers to the only true religion. My heart is deeply af- 
fected in view of your state. A nohle people, you are 
shut out from the joys to which Grod invites you. You 
are hoodwinked and manacled hy a system of the 
grossest fraud and delusion ; you are denied the com- 
mon hirthright of a citizen of the world — seeing with 
your own eyes and hearing with your own ears. You 
are rohhed of the only volume that can guide you, and 
are forbidden to enter the way of life, save through the 
gate which is guarded hy your priests. Oh, suffer the 
entreaties of one who suffered as you now do under the 
galling chains of papal tyranny! Break the fetters 
which priests have forged, and in which they have 
bound you. You are now in a land where you may 
laugh at the excommunications and anathemas of 
popes, prelates, and priests — where curses fall only on 
the heads of those who utter them. God has given 
you his word ; let no man filch it from you. G-od has 
given you a mind to think for yourselves ; let no man 
usurp the power of thinking for you. God invites you 
to himself, to receive at his own hand pardon and for- 
giveness. Oh, submit not to go and pay for these, and 
on your knees, to a priest who only cares to get your 
money ! Go to the Bible for your rehgion. Receive 
nothing as religious truth which is not there taught, 
and your mental, social, and moral regeneration is com- 
menced. 



128 kirwan'sletters 

Deserter. In bad company. The oldest religion. 

But you meet this appeal with the objection that I 
am a deserter from your Church, and that I am not, 
therefore, to be heard. If your priests take any notice 
at all of these letters, I know well the changes they 
will ring upon this idea. But was not Peter a desert- 
er from the Jewish Church, and must he not be heard 
on that account ? Must a man who renounces error 
never be heard by those who continue in it? And 
what think you of the persecution by your Church of 
those who renounce its authority ? To say the least 
of it, it is in bad company. The Jews put Christ to 
death for deserting the faith of Moses ; the Moham- 
medans put to death any man of their number who 
rejects the Koran for Christ ; the Hindoos expel from 
their society all who reject their religion for ours ; and 
popery has shed in rivers the blood of those who could 
not but reject its follies and absurdities. In this hap- 
py land, the bull of a pope is as harmless as a lamb, 
and the thunders of the Vatican have no lightning that 
injures. Priests may prejudice you against these let- 
ters, but they are the interested party ; their craft is 
in danger ; and all I ask of you is to give my reasons 
the candid consideration which you owe to yourself, 
and which their importance requires. 

But you may ask. What ! do you wish me to give 
up my religion? Is not mine the oldest religion? 
Here, I well know, is the invincible argument with 
many of you, but has it any weight ? Are the oldest 
things always the best ? If so, then the Jews were 
right in resisting Christianity, and the pagans are right 
in clinging to their false systems, and you do wrong in 



TO BISHOP HUGHE B. 129 

Popery and Mohammedanism. Not iho oldest. 

ever exchanging an old garment or an old house for a 
new one. But is popery the oldest religion ? Oh no, 
Christianity is older. Popery and Mohammedanism 
arose at the same time, and centuries after the estab- 
Hshment of Christianity. They are alike corruptions 
of the religion of Jesus, though the Prophet has apos- 
tatized farther than the Pope. They both appeal to 
the senses, and are both idolatrous. If the Pope has 
his holy water, the Prophet has his holy well. If the 
one has his holy bones, and coats, and relics, the other 
has his holy pieces of tapestry from the temple of Mec- 
ca. They have alike their pilgrimages, their senseless 
repetition of prayers, their Lents, their penances, and 
their external symbols, which alike adorn the church 
and the mosque. And if the papist can object to Chris- 
tianity, saying. Is not mine the oldest religion ? then 
can the Mohammedan do the same. 

But yours is not the oldest rehgion. I could here 
give you the time, did the limits of a letter permit, 
when the distinguishing doctrines of your Church were 
introduced. The celibacy of the clergy came into the 
Church in the fourth century ; Purgatory appeared in 
the seventh, and was affirmed in the twelfth ; auricu- 
lar confessions and the worship of the Host in the thir- 
teenth ; and so on to the end of the chapter.^ And 
instead of wishing you to give up the oldest religion, 
we wish you only to give up popery for Christianity ; 
to give up the new and to return to the old. All that 

* Of the way in which papal doctrines have been added, we have an 
illustration in the recently published dogma of the Immaculate Con- 
ception. 

F2 



130 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

As in the Bible. Advice. The true way. 

I have done myself, and all that I desire you to do, is 
to lay aside every thing that Pope, bishops, and priests 
have added to the religion of Jesus, and to embrace 
that religion just as it is taught in the Bible. 

Convinced that you have been deceived by those to 
whom you have been looking for guidance — that priests 
have sought your money more than your salvation — 
that instead of bread they have given you stones, and 
for eggs serpents — that they have sought to brutalize 
instead of enlightening you — to enslave instead of ele- 
vating you to the liberty with which Christ makes his 
people free : do any of you inquire as to the course best 
for you to pursue ? If you will take the advice of one 
that has gone before you in the way, it is cheerfully 
given. Think not of giving up all religion because of 
the deceptions of popery. This was one of my mis- 
takes. Take the Bible for your guide ; that will not 
deceive you. It teaches you that you are a sinner ; 
this you should believe and feel. It teaches you that 
Christ died for sinners, and that his blood cleanses 
from all sin, and that to escape the wrath and curse 
of Grod due to you for sin, the great and the only pre- 
requisites are repentance toward Q-od and faith in the 
Lord Jesus Christ. Grive up your Missal for the Bi- 
ble ; confess your sins, not to your priests, but to your 
Grod ; look for pardon and meetness for heaven, not to 
priestly ablutions, and eating wafers, and extreme unc- 
tions, but to the righteousness of Jesus Christ, received 
by faith, and, in spite of popes, prelates, and priests, 
life, eternal life, is yours. 

Wishing and praying for you all that deUverance 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 131 

Good wishes. 

from popish thraldom in which I rejoice, and that 
Gospel hope of future blessedness which is my stay 
and comfort in this vale of tears, 

I am, with great respect, yours, Kirwan. 



SECOND SERIES. 



INTRODUCTION 

TO THE SECOND SERIES. 

Success of former series. 

The Letters in the New York Observer, addressed to 
Bishop Hughes, under the signature of " Kirwan," pro- 
duced, as might have been expected, an extraordinary 
sensation. They were read, not by the bishop only, 
nor by Protestants only, but by many in the bosom of 
the Church of Rome, who were thus led to see the ab- 
surdity of much which they had been taught to be- 
lieve. One edition followed another in rapid succes- 
sion. They were translated into the German language, 
and published for the thousands flocking to our shores 
and speaking that tongue ; they were reprinted in En- 
gland, and circulated among the Roman Catholics 
there and in Ireland, with what effect we have yet to 
learn. 

But the author, in assigning to Bishop Hughes the 
reasons that prevent his return to the Church in which 
he was born, baptized, and confirmed, had by no means 
exhausted the catalogue, and he was repeatedly called 
upon to complete the work. 

Of these calls, the following, published in the Ob- 
server, is a fair indication of the estimate in which the 
former series was held, and of the public desire that 
Kirwan would resume his pen. 



136 INTRODUCTION TO 

Letter to Kirwan. 

" To the Author of the Letters on Romanism^ lately 
addressed to Bishop Hughes through the Neio 
York Observer^ over the signature of Kirwan, 
'' Sir, — Though you have chosen hitherto to keep in 
the shade in reference to the authorship of these letters, 
I suppose you are not buried in so deep obscurity as 
not to have some knowledge of what is passing in the 
world around you. But lest you should chance to be 
less knowing than might be presumed, I beg to state 
to you through your own channel of communication, 
that the letters to which I refer have been read by the 
religious community at large with a degree of interest 
that has rarely been felt in reference to any similar 
publication. If I mistake not, the judgment of the 
world is, that they are characterized by a simplicity 
and perspicuity that bring them fairly within the scope 
of any comprehension — ^by a force of thought and ex- 
pression which no reflecting and impartial mind will 
find it easy to resist — ^by an amount of good nature 
and Christian charity which must prevent any reason- 
able opponent from taking offense ; and last, though 
not least, by an unwonted pungency, which is likely, 
ere this, to have vibrated in a note of terror to the in- 
nermost heart of Rome. I believe, in common with a 
multitude of wiser and better men, that these letters 
have as yet only begun to fulfill their mission, and that 
those who live at the ends of the earth, and who are 
destined to live in coming years, will look upon them 
as having had much to do in lifting from the world 
one of its heaviest curses. 

" But my object in addressing you is something 



THE SECOND SERIES. 137 

The public call. 

more than to inform you of that of which, I dare say, 
you need no information. You are aware that it is 
only a portion of the ground of the Romish controversy 
which your letters have occupied. There are many 
points of equal moment with those already discussed 
which you have left untouched. Allow me to say, 
yours is the hand to sweep through this whole domain 
of error. It would be an occasion of deep regret if you 
should not carry forward to its completion a work 
which you have so happily begun. The Christian pub- 
lic expect — may I not say, demand it of you. The mul- 
titude who are yet in the same spiritual thraldom from 
which you have escaped demand it. Your country, 
whose political as well as religious interests are threat- 
ened with deadly invasion, demands it. The cause of 
an enUghtened Christianity, of a sound and evangeli- 
cal Protestantism, demands it. There is a requisition 
upon you, Kirwan, which I am sure you can not resist 
without offending against the mercy that hath taken 
your own feet out of the miry clay, and established 
your goings. May the Head of the Church enable you 
suitably to appreciate your obligations and responsibil- 
ities. Keep in the dark if you will, only lead others 
into the light of life and into the liberty wherewith 
Christ makes his disciples free. Be assured that in 
making these suggestions I am One of Many." 

Obedient to these calls, and impelled by a sense of 
duty to his kinsmen according to the flesh, his coun- 
trymen and brethren, he has prepared this second se- 
ries in the same courteous and conciliatory style of the 



138 INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND SERIES. 

Obeys the public call. 

former, breathing the same national sympathy with 
Irishmen, and full of the humor that betrays the au- 
thor's nativity, while it secures the attention of the 
reader. 

Placed in the hands of those yet in the faith of Bish- 
op Hughes, these letters will be read without prejudice ; 
and followed, as I trust they will be, with the enlight- 
ening and convincing Spirit, they will work mightily 
in opening the eyes of those now wandering in error, 
and leading them to the knowledge of the truth. 

Samuel iRENiEus Prime. 



SECOND SERIES, 



LETTER I. 

Reasons for this Second Series. — Why addressed to Bishop Hughes. 
— Evil days have come upon Popery. 

Hope disappointed. The ruffle. Reasons. 

My dear Sir, — ^When I closed the letters I had the 
honor of addressing to you during the last spring, I 
fondly hoped that my part in the thickening contro- 
versy on Romanism in our country had closed also. 
As those letters formed my first, I designed that they 
should also form my last appearance hefore the public 
on that topic. So I expressed myself to you in my 
closing letter; hut the unexpected '^ ripple" has been 
" excited on the current of my feelings," and, whether 
wise or otherwise, I have concluded again to address 
you. 

My reasons for so doing, and thus departing from 
my original resolution, are briefly these : The public, 
who have so kindly received and so widely circulated 
my " Letters," have called for another series, embrac- 
ing the reasons which I have omitted to state, and 
which, together with those stated, forbid my return to 
your Church. At least one of the papers devoted to 
the interests of popery in this country calls upon me, 
in a semi-serious manner, to give my views on certain 



140 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Manual of objections. Partial decision. 

points which it raises ; individuals of your communion, 
who have given my letters a candid perusal, have ask- 
ed what Kirwan had to say upon this and that point 
not considered by me ; and last, though not least, is a 
desire to put into the hands of every inquiring Roman 
Catholic a complete manual of my objections to your 
Church, candidly and kindly considered. There, rev- 
erend sir, are the reasons and motives, and not a love 
of controversy for its own sake, which induce me again 
to address you. Controversy, for its own sake, is not 
desirable, but it is necessary so long as error resists the 
progress of truth. 

While yielding to these reasons and motives, I yet 
confess to you that I deem the present series of letters, 
which will be brief, a work of supererogation. If you 
have never performed such a work, you know what it 
means. My conviction is, that the reasons given in 
my former letters for refusing to return to your Church 
are sufficient — sufficient to induce any sane mind to 
withhold its faith from your teachings, and every sane 
man to abandon your Church. This, you will say, is 
a partial decision ; it may be so. But as a tree may 
be held in its place by a few weak roots after the main 
ligaments that bound it to the earth are cut, and when 
the weakest wind that blows may cause it to totter, 
so a mind, when the power of an ancient superstition 
over it is broken, may yet retain a connection with it, 
influenced by reasons which seem unworthy of consid- 
eration. I know this to be the case. The belief in 
*' witches and warls" was early impressed on the mind 
of David Hume ; and it is said of him that, after he 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 141 

Hume. A bad tree. Question answered. 

reasoned matter and mind out of existence, he could 
not hear the rustHng of a leaf after dark without start- 
ing as if a witch were upon him. The taste and smell 
of a sour liquid remain long in the emptied cask ; and 
if any mind, rejecting the great outlines of your system, 
is yet held to it by some reasons which I have not con- 
sidered, and whose absurdity I may be able to expose, 
I feel anxious to relieve it. I must not withhold from 
you my deep conviction that popery is an evil tree — 
that its fruits are only evil. I believe it to be a falling 
tree. Its branches are withering in the air, and the 
axe, wielded by an Almighty hand, is cutting its roots ; 
and if I can assist in cutting a few more of its roots, 
and thus hastening its fall, I feel that I will be confer- 
ring a benefit upon our race, and contributing to the 
emancipation of millions of men from a slavery in 
comparison with which that of the Pharaohs was free- 
dom. Hence these additional letters ; and all I intend 
doing is to state to you some farther reasons which for- 
bid my return to your Church. 

Before entering upon a statement of these reasons, 
permit me to say a few things which I can better say 
in this preliminary letter than any where else. 

The question has doubtless suggested itself to your 
mind and to the minds of others, Why do I address 
these letters to you ? Some of my reasons I have al- 
ready given you. I believe you to be a man of sense 
and of fair character, which can not be said of all papal 
priests. You are put forth, now that Bishop England, 
also one of our countrymen, is no more, as the Achilles 
of your party in these United States. If any man in 



142 KIR WAN's LETTERS 



Quite smart. Up to Achilles. The argument for the man. 

the country can refute my reasoning and obviate my 
objections, it is thought you can do it. In the absence 
of the higher quahties of mind, you are considered as 
quite smart; and as my sole object and aim is the 
truth, I have selected the man, in my opinion, best fit- 
ted to correct me when in error ; when false, to show 
me the fallacy of my reasoning ; and if he should re- 
ply, who would reply as a gentleman. If you can not 
confute me, no man of your Church in these United 
States can. Nor will I consent to notice what may be 
said in the way of reply to or abuse of these letters by 
any man save yourself. I have, as they say, a draw- 
ing toward you as an Irishman ; I respect your open 
and manly bearing ; and sadly as, in my opinion, you 
prostitute your talents, I have respect for them. Hence 
I pass through the ranks of soldiers and by inferior 
officers, and go up to Achilles himself. 

But you have not answered my former letters ! I 
confess to you, sir, that I had no expectation that you 
would ansvs^er them, and for these reasons : First, be- 
cause they are anonymous ; and as I like not myself 
to contend with a masked opponent, so I judged of you. 
The text is capable of wide application : ^' As face an- 
swereth to face in water, so the heart of man to man." 
I prefer, for the present, to stand behind the curtain ; 
and for this, among other reasons, that you and all men 
may decide upon what I say simply upon the merits 
of my statements and arguments ; and for the addi- 
tional reason, to prevent a personal controversy. It is 
an old trick of your Church to leave the argument for 
the man. And, secondly, because of their matter. I 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 143 

Facts stubborn things. Play dumb. Evil days. 

speak to you of what my eyes have seen, of what my 
ears have heard, of what my heart has felt. Facts are 
stubborn things. How can you make a man beheve 
that to be sweet which, from actual taste, he knows to 
be sour ? It is hard to reason against a man's experi- 
ence. On these grounds I expected from you no reply. 
And although, unless I mistake you, not one of the lit- 
tle men who seek to put the more abundant honor on 
the part that lacketh by a mock dignity, by an assumed 
superiority, yet you know when to be wisely silent. 
If, sir, without compromising your crosier — if, during 
some hours of leisure from your varied and manifold 
duties, you would consent to answer some of the rea- 
sons and considerations which I have stated, and will 
state in the following letters, which forbid my return 
to your Church, there is one, at least, that will read 
your reply with great pleasure. I am not, sir, among 
those who impute your silence to your inability to re- 
ply to my statements ; but if I can only gain access to 
the public ear — ^if I can only obtain from candid Ro- 
man Catholics a careful consideration of what I say, 
your silence will give but little trouble. You may 
play dumb as long as it suits you ; my object will be 
attained. 

Permit me to make one other remark before closing 
this letter. Evil days have come upon the system of 
which you are so open an advocate. Once you could 
silence inquiry by Church authority ; but, in this coun- 
try especially, that day has passed away ; it is passing 
away even under the shadow of the dome of St. Peter's. 
There are those yet, in this country and in the old 



144 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Jackdaws. Mere authority. Put on the harness. 

countries of Europe, who, like that useless bird of sa- 
ble wingj called the jackdaw, which you and I have 
seen in our youth, love the narrow window, and the 
toppling tower, and the mantling ivy, who hover about 
whatever is ancient, however worthless or truthless, 
but their number is small, and is daily diminishing. 
The great inquiry now is after the true, the scriptural, 
the reasonable. The day for the trial of all things has 
come. Mere authority in philosophy, in morals, in 
religion, is valueless. When man appeals from the 
Church to the Scriptures, it is of no avail to say to him, 
"Believe the Church." No appeal is admitted from 
the Scriptures to the Fathers — from the teachings of 
Paul to the decisions of councils. Old things, if ab- 
surd, are passing away, and their wrinkles only hasten 
their death. Nor is there in the physical or moral sci- 
ences, nor in the science of government, nor in the the- 
ory of religion, a single principle that is not tried and 
sifted as if never tried before. At this treatment, hoary 
error may lift up its hands in holy horror, and fall back 
aghast as did Saul before the ghost of Samuel, but it 
can not be helped. There may be, and doubtless is, a 
reckless speculation, a profane tampering with sacred 
things, but nothing will eventually suffer but the truth- 
less. And what will become of popery when proof and 
Scripture supplant authority and credulity ? 

It becomes you, then, sir, to buckle on the harness. 
The battle has but begun between truth and error. 
You have witnessed hot contests, but far hotter are 
before you. The system you advocate is considered 
not only hugely false, but greatly dangerous to all the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 145 

Let truth triumph and error perish. 

interests of man, and its every principle and all its pol- 
icy will be tried as in the fire. In your soul and in 
mine there should not be a desire but for the triumph 
of the truth. Let any opinion that I hold be proved 
unscriptural and unreasonable, and I will cheerfully 
give it to the hottest furnace you can heat to consume 
it. Let the truth of God triumph, whatever human 
systems perish. Will you join me in this aspiration ? 
In my next I shall proceed with my statement of 
some of the additional reasons which prevent me from 
returning to your Church. 

With respect, yours, Kiravan. 

a 



146 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Extreme unction. The sacrament explained. 



LETTER II. 

Extreme Unction. — Its Meaning. — The way of administering it. — 
James, v., 14, 15. — It enriches the Church. — An Incident. 

My dear Sir, — Agreeably to the promise made to 
you in closing my last letter, I now proceed to a state- 
ment of the additional reasons which yet prevent my 
return to the pale of your Church, in which I was born, 
baptized, and confirmed. I shall begin with your sac- 
crament of Extreme Unction, As but few of your 
own people, and yet fewer Protestants, understand it, 
I hope you and my readers will bear with me even 
if I should occupy this letter with its consideration. 
When rightly understood, it is a terrible sacrament. I 
will strive so to explain it as to bring it to the level 
of every mind, and from your own standard authors, 
which lie before me. 

The name of the sacrament explains it ; it is anoint- 
ing a sick person with holy oil when recovery is ex- 
tremely doubtful. This, and the fact that it is sup- 
posed to be the last act of religion, give it its name. 
The object of this anointing is thus explained by the 
doctors of Trent : ^' The devil is always busy in seek- 
ing to destroy the souls of men ; yet it is at the hour 
of death that he most vehemently exerts all his power ; 
and the object of this anointing by holy oil is to fortify 
the soul in the dying hour against the violent attacks 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 147 

Defined at Trent. The oil. Its effects. 

of its spiritual enemies, and to enable it to make a 
holy death and to secm-e a happy eternity." 

The only person who can administer this sacrament 
is a bishop or priest. You admit a midwife or a lay- 
man to baptize, but a priest only can administer ex- 
treme unction. The reasons for this will appear in 
the sequel. 

The oil used in this sacrament must not be common 
oil. That the effects intended may be produced, it 
must be oil of olives, " solemnly blessed by the bishop 
every year on Maunday Thursday." I quote from 
Challoner ; the sentence leaves it doubtful whether the 
efficacy of the bishop's blessing continues only a year, 
or whether the oil used must be blessed on that day. 
It has what is called in rhetoric a squinting construc- 
tion. As the bishop is paid for blessing it, it is proba- 
ble he blesses but little at once, and that he gives it 
efficacy but for a limited time. 

The effects and fruits of this anointing are these : It 
remits sins, at least such as are venial ; it heals the 
soul of its infirmity and weakness, and helps to remove 
the debt of punishment due to past sins ; it strength- 
ens the soul to bear the illness of the body and to re- 
pel its spiritual enemies; and ^Hfit be expedient for 
the good of the soul, it often restores the health of 
the hodyP I wish you, sir, and my readers, to ponder 
the sentence in itahcs. Its meaning is this : If the 
person is restored, it is a miracle wrought by extreme 
unction ; if he dies, restoration would not conduce to 
the health of his soul ! ! 

The manner of administering this sacrament is as 



148 kirwan's letters 

The way of anointing. The subject. Authority. 

follows : If the time permits, certain prescribed pray- 
ers are said, the Confiteor is repeated, and absolution 
is granted ; then the priest, making thrice the sign of 
the cross, says, '' In the name of the Father, and of the 
Son, and of the Holy Grhost, may all the power of the 
devil be extinguished in thee by the laying on of our 
hands and the invocation of the holy angels, archan- 
gels," &c. Then, dipping his thumb in the holy oil, 
he anoints the sick person in the form of a cross upon 
the eyes, the ears, the nose, the mouth, the hands, and 
feet, at each anointing making use of this form of 
prayer : " Through this holy unction and his own most 
tender mercy, may the Lord pardon thee whatever sin 
thou hast committed by thy sight. Amen." And the 
same prayer is repeated, adapting the form to the sev- 
eral senses. 

The requisite dispositions in the receiver are faith in 
the sacrament, a pure desire for the health of his soul, 
and of his body if expedient, resignation, repentance, 
devotion. 

In case of recovery and relapse, it may be repeated, 
and as often as the person relapses. 

And your scriptural authority for all this you find in 
James, v., 14, 15, which you thus translate : " Is any 
sick among you ? Let him bring in the priests of the 
Church, and let them pray over him, anointing him 
with oil in the name of the Lord ; and the prayer of 
faith shall save the sick man, and the Lord will lift 
him up ; and if he be in sin, his sins will be forgiven 
him." 

Such is your extreme unction, as described by the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 149 

The priests ! ♦ The difference. Differing objects. 

CouncU of Trent, Challoner, and the Poor Man's Cate- 
chism. Although abridged, you at least will say that 
it is a perfectly fair abridgment. Let us now examine 
it in the light of Scripture and reason. 

I ask you to look at your G-reek Testament, and then 
to answer me on what authority you thus translate a 
portion of the 14th verse of James v. : ''Let him bring 
in the priests of the Church." Ah ! the priests, the 
priests ; this sacrament is for their benefit, and by a 
mistranslation, the power of anointing and praying 
must be confined to them ! "What a wonderful lean- 
ing all your errors and nonsense have to the priests ! 

But does the text afibrd the shadow of a support to 
the sacrament ? No, not even the shadow. You ut- 
terly pervert the meaning of the apostle. The anoint- 
ing and prayer of James is for the life of the sick ; 
your anointing is for their death, and is never admin- 
istered while there is any hope of life. The anointing 
of James is for the cure of the body ; yours is for the 
cure of the soul, in reference to which the text gives 
no direction. The saving of the sick and the forgive- 
ness of sins are in consequence of the prayer of faith. 
Can none but a priest offer that prayer ? The anoint- 
ing of James and the prayers to be offered were to be 
followed with miraculous recovery ; yours are to be 
followed with speedy death. The cures wrought by 
the anointing of James were for the establishment of 
the claims of the Grospel; yours for the purpose of 
establishing the ghostly authority of your priesthood. 
That text above quoted is confessedly the only one on 
which you build your sacrament, and that text must 



150 KIRWAN's LETTERS 

But one instance. A grave question. Do explain. 

be mistranslated, and utterly tortured out of its sense 
and meaning even to afford a pretext to the use which 
you make of it ; and this is but one of the many in- 
stances in which your Church has changed and pervert- 
ed the original meaning of the Scriptures, and forged 
them into chains to bind men to your system of delu- 
sion. 

Having thus swept from your extreme unction the 
only scriptural authority claimed for it, and hung it up 
as a commandment of men, I have a few questions to 
ask in reference to it. 

Is it so that Grod's people need the oil of olives bless- 
ed on Maunday Thursday to be placed upon their eyes, 
and nose, and ears, and tongue, and hands, and feet, to 
secure the remission of their sins, and to heal the mal- 
adies of their souls, and to enable them to repel their 
spiritual enemies ? If this oil can do it, what need is 
there of the blood of Christ ? If the blood of Christ 
and the presence of his Spirit can do it, what is the 
need of this olive oil ? Do explain this matter. 

But again : you require in the receiver of this sac- 
rament the dispositions stated above. Those are truly 
Christian dispositions, bating a few things in your man- 
ner of stating them. If these dispositions are possess- 
ed, will not the soul of the person be saved without 
your olive oil? If not possessed, will your olive oil 
save it ? Do explain this matter. 

Again: among the effects of this sacrament, as stated 
in the Poor Man's Catechism, p. 329, is this : '' It brings 
him (the sick man) in safety to the port of eternal hap- 
piness." Now, sir, does extreme unction save from 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 151 

A device to get money. An incantation. 

Purgatory ? This you will not say. If not, then it 
only takes him to the port of eternal happiness ; from 
the port he is turned into Purgatory ; and your priests 
get paid for the olive oil by which he slips safely to the 
port of eternal happiness, and then they get paid for 
the masses by which they get him out of purgatorial 
fires into heaven I So that extreme unction is simply 
a device to increase '' the alms and the suffrages of the 
faithful." Is not this so ? 

Again : what a low and sad view of the religion of 
God does this sacrament give to a dying man ! It is 
administered to all that seek it on a dying bed. Let 
us suppose a case which, no doubt, often occurs. There 
is a papist in the article of death. To this hour he has 
lived in sin. Feeling that death is upon him, he sends 
for his priest. He thinks now of nothing but confes- 
sion, the Eucharist, and extreme unction. The priest 
appears in his robes. If the sick man is able, he con- 
fesses ; if not able, the anointing commences, and pro- 
ceeds in the way already stated. He is crossed and 
anointed on his eyes, his nose, his tongue, his ears, his 
hands, and feet, and the prescribed prayers are said. 
The man now dies in peace, feeling that his sins are 
remitted, that his soul is healed of its infirmities, that 
his spiritual enemies are all subdued through the effi- 
cacy of olive oil blessed on Maunday Thursday ! Not 
a thought of the dying man is directed to the cross of 
Jesus Christ or to the efficacy of his atonement ! So 
that extreme unction is a papal incantation, by which 
the priest makes a deluded people to believe that the 
keys of heaven and hell hang by his girdle^ — ^that by 



152 kirwan's letters 

Olive oil for the blood of Christ. Tremendous use. 

his olive oil he can procure for them all that the Bible 
suspends on faith in Jesus Christ! Esteem me not 
harsh, reverend sir, when I declare it as my deep con- 
viction that, by your sacrament of extreme unction, 
your Church is deluding and damning multitudes of 
souls, and from year to year. It is a wicked substitu- 
tion of olive oil for the blood of Christ at the dying 
hour, and simply and only for the benefit of your priests. 

And what a tremendous use your Church has made 
of it! Graining access to the dying beds of kings, 
princes, and barons, in past days, with your olive oil, 
you have extorted millions of money from those who 
believed in your ghostly power. You have thus en- 
riched the Church and impoverished the people. You 
have built palaces for your bishops, and reduced the 
people to beggary. What will a dying sinner with- 
hold from a man, who, he believes, has the power to 
lock him up in hell, or, by a little olive oil rubbed on 
with his thumb, can conduct him to the port of eter- 
nal happiness? 

The man yet lives who narrates the following scene, 
of which he was an eye and ear witness. The chief 
of one of our Indian tribes, a man of great sagacity 
and decision, was on his dying bed. Many of his peo- 
ple, by a French Jesuit, were converted to the faith of 
your Church. He knew the wiles of your missionary, 
and forbade him admission to his dying bed. The 
priest came with his olive oil, and pressed so hard for 
admission to him that it was granted. " Stay," said 
the dying chief to the man who relates the story, " stay 
outside the door, and if I knock, come in." The priest 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 153 



The dying chief. Land 1 land ! Some other market. 

entered, and the door was closed. Soon a violent knock 
was heard, and the man entered the room. '^ Take 
him out," said the dying chief; ^'take him out — land 
— land — give me land." The priest would put on the 
olive oil, but wanted first a grant of land. 

Reverend sir, your Church must annul this sacra- 
ment of extreme unction before I can return to its em- 
brace. To my mind it is extreme nonsense. Should 
not incantations over dying men be left to Hottentots ? 
I implore you to seek some other market for your olive 
oil than the chambers of the dying. You sell it there 
at too dear a price, and very often to the deep injury 
of the widow and the orphan. Often do your wretch- 
ed priests carry away the last dollar of a poor man in 
pay for their ohve oil, and leave the victim of their de- 
lusions to be buried as a pauper ! 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 

Q2 



154 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Penance. Defined. As to the penitent. 



LETTER III. 

The pretended Sacrament of Penance described. — No Scripture War- 
rant for it. — Its Absurdities. — A personal Inquiry. 

My dear Sir,— With your leave, I will proceed with 
my statement of the reasons which prevent my return 
to the embraces of your Church. Permit me to ask, 
in the present letter, your consideration of the reason 
which I deduce from your sacrament of Penance, It 
presents an ohjection as strong as your sacrament of 
extreme unction, which, without meaning to be irrev- 
erent, I have already pronounced extreme nonsense. 

As but few even of your own people understand this 
sacrament, I will give a brief statement of it, and from 
your own authors. 

Penance is a sacrament by which the sins commit- 
ted after baptism are forgiven. Your doctrine is, that 
original sin is washed away in baptism, and that pen- 
ance secures the forgiveness of all sins committed after 
baptism ! "Where is this distinction taught in the Bi- 
ble? DoteUus. 

On the part of the penitent, penance consists in con- 
trition, confession, and satisfaction. Contrition is a 
hearty sorrow for sin, with a resolution to sin no more ; 
confession is a full and sincere declaration of all our 
sins to a priest ; satisfaction is a faithful performance 
of the prayers and good works enjoined by the confess- 
or. So far as to the penitent. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 155 

As to the priest. Its elTects The prodigal. 



On the part of the priest, it consists in the absolu- 
tion which he pronounces by the authority of Jesus 
Christ. The form of absolution is in these words : *' I 
absolve thee from thy sins, in the name of the Father, 
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 

The effects of this sacrament are thus stated in the 
" Poor Man's Catechism :" '' It remits all the sins of the 
penitent without exception, restores him to the grace 
he had forfeited, replenishes his soul with the greatest 
peace, tranquillity, and spiritual delights, and reinstates 
him again in the friendship of Grod, as the prodigal son, 
after his return, was restored to his former honors in 
the house of his father." Wonderful results from such 
causes ! May I ask here, if the parable of the prodigal 
son meant to represent the way of return of a sinner 
to Grod, where did he stop to make confession and re- 
ceive absolution ? Do tell us. 

None but a priest can grant absolution ; and the 
power of the priest to absolve you draw from John, xx., 
22, 23 : '' And when he had said this, he breathed on 
them, and said unto them. Receive ye the Holy Grhost. 
Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto 
them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are re- 
tained ;" and from Matt., xvi., 15-19. 

Such, sir, in brief, is your sacrament of penance. 
Let us now look at it in the light of Scripture and 
reason. 

And let me first ask you. How do you make a sacri- 
fice of penance ? Look at Challoner's definition of a 
sacrament : ^' It is an outward sign or ceremony of 
Christ's institution, by which grace is given to the soul 



156 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

How a. sacrament. Such a garden I Polluting confessional. 

of the worthy receiver." Now, what is the outward 
sign of penance ? It has no outward sign, no external 
ceremony. It is not a sacrament, according to your 
own rules. Your absolution is a different thing from 
your penance. 

Again : two of the constituent elements of penance, 
confession and absolution, have no foundation in Scrip- 
ture. Of confession I have already spoken. I have 
shown it to be a priestly device of the most fatal influ- 
ence upon human liberty ; its tendency to the corrup- 
tion of morals is acknowledged. There is on my table 
a book, called '' The Garden of the Soul," bearing on 
its title-page your own name ; and such a garden ! 
Now, conceive yourself sitting in your confessional, 
and whispering through the little hole in its side in the 
ears of a modest or immodest young girl of eighteen, 
or an amiable young wife of twenty-one years, the 
questions on pages 212 and 214 ! Sir, I dare not quote 
them here. I strove to read them to a friend a few 
days since, and before I got half through he cried out, 
" Stop ! I can hear no more." The polluting confes- 
sional is a part of your sacrament of penance. Of ab- 
solution I shall speak in the sequel. 

Look at the texts, for a moment, which you quote as 
teaching your power of absolution. It seems to me 
that if they were capable of any other interpretation 
than that which you give them, you would prefer it, 
in order to get rid of the monstrous power with which 
it clothes your priests. But, alas ! it is for the sake 
of that power that you pervert them. As there were 
various opinions entertained as to who Christ was, we 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 157 

Absolution. The keys. The power of the apostles. 

hear him, in Matt., xvi., 15, asking his disciples, ''Whom 
say ye that I am ?" Peter repHes, " Thou art Christ, 
the Son of the living God." Jesus replies, '' Upon this 
rock" (that is, the confession of Peter that he was the 
Son of the living G-od) '' I will build my Church." 
How simple and common-sense ! 

Addressing Peter, and through him the other disci- 
ples, he says, '' I will give thee the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven." Need I tell you, sir, that by '' the 
kingdom of heaven" here is meant the Church of 
Christ? Can such a master in Israel as you are be 
ignorant of this? This being so, "the keys of the 
kingdom" simply means the power of admitting proper 
persons to the Church, and excluding improper persons 
from it. Keys, you know, were the ancient emblems 
of authority. How simple and common-sense is all 
this! 

Continuing to address Peter, and through him the 
other disciples, he says, ''Whatsoever thou shalt bind 
on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatsoever 
thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven." 
To bind and to loose here are equivalent to bidding 
and forbidding, to granting and refusing, to declaring 
lawful or unlawful. The apostles were endued with 
the Holy Ghost, that they might infallibly declare the 
will of God to mankind, and determine what was or 
was not binding on the conscience — to show what per- 
sons ought or ought not to be admitted to the Church, 
and to decide on the characters of those whose sins 
were or were not forgiven ; and whatever in these or 
similar things they bound or loosed on earth, would 



158 kirwan's letters 

Right interpretation. Our rock. Built on Satan. 

be bound or loosed in heaven. This is also the mean- 
ing of John, XX., 22, 23, already quoted. This, sir, I 
believe to be the common-sense, the fair and just in- 
terpretation of a passage on which your Church has 
built up a priestly power that has overshadowed the 
earth and enslaved nations. Where now, sir, is your 
supremacy of Peter, your power of the keys, your pow- 
er of absolution ? Gone, like the morning cloud before 
the sun. Blessed be Grod, you have not yet turned 
your keys upon the common sense of the world ! 

Now, sir, look for a moment at some of the absurd- 
ities connected with your interpretations of the above 
-texts. They are sufficiently startling. 

Your Church is built upon Peter. '' Thou art Pe- 
ter, and upon this rock I build my Church." So that 
your Church is built upon the person of Peter ; ours 
is built upon the truth declared by Peter. Is, sir, your 
rock as our rock ? 

Is your Church built upon Peter ? Now turn from 
the 19th verse of the 18th of Matthew, which we have 
been considering, to the 22d and 23d verses of the same 
chapter. Peter is represented as rebuking his Lord for 
the intimations he had given of his approaching death. 
But the Master, turning upon Peter, thus addressed 
him : " G-et thee behind me, Satan." So that, on your 
principles of interpretation, your Church must be built 
upon Satan ! Do not get vexed ; I am reasoning with 
you on your own principles. 

What your priests, however profane or wicked, bind 
or loose upon earth, is bound or loosed in heaven. Now 
here is a wicked man absolved by a priest : does he go 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 159 

IIow is this ? The curate and priest. Satisfaction. 

to heaven ? Here is a good man bound by a priest : 
does he go to hell ? It must be so, on your principles. 
But you say he must be a sincere penitent to gain any 
benefit from absolution. But if truly contrite, he can 
get to heaven without your absolution. 

Take another case : the man bound by the curate 
may be loosed by the parish priest. I take the follow- 
ing illustration from a book before me : A penitent is 
enjoined to abstain from breakfast every morning un- 
til his next confession. Christmas day intervenes, and 
he eats breakfast, not thinking that that day could be 
included. On confessing this at his next confession, 
the curate drove him from his knee, declaring that he 
would have no more to do with a person that so trifled 
with his commands. On the borders of despair, he 
went to the parish priest, telling him the whole story. 
'' Do not mind it, my child," said the kind-hearted fa- 
ther; ^'I will confess you." He did so, and absolved 
him. Here one priest binds sin on his soul, and an- 
other unbinds it. He dies in this state. "What be- 
comes of him ? Does the binding of the curate send 
him to hell, or does the loosing of the parish priest send 
him to heaven ? "What becomes of him ? Is he sus- 
pended somewhere between heaven and hell ? Do ex- 
plain this matter to our comprehension. 

But let us look at the satisfaction^ which is a part 
of the sacrament of penance. "• It consists in a faith- 
ful performance of the penance enjoined by the priest 
to whom we confess, whether as to restitution, or pray- 
ers, or alms-deeds, or fasting, to make some reparation 
by these eminent good works for the injury done to 



160 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Exchange office. Prayers a punishment. Kinds of penance. 

Grod." The penance enjoined by the priest is an '^ ex- 
change which G-od makes of eternal punishment, which 
we have deserved hy sin, into these small penitential 
works." I quote from Challoner. And, without satis- 
faction like this, the sinner can not be saved. 

Now, sir, will you tell me where this is taught in 
the Scriptures ? Where are we told that the blood of 
Christ is not sufficient to cleanse from all sin ? "Where 
is authority given to ministers or priests to establish 
an exchange-office, where, for a compensation, '' eternal 
punishment is exchanged for small penitential works?" 
Where does the Bible make a difference between ante- 
baptism and post-baptism sins ? 

Take another view of this thing. Penance means 
punishment ; and '' prayers, fasting, and alms" are en- 
joined by the priests as penance — that is, as punish- 
ment ; so that your Church makes prayers a punish- 
ment to atone for sins ! What the Bible makes a priv- 
ilege, you make a punishment ! The fasting which is 
beneficial is that to which we are led by a sense of 
our sins ; you enjoin it as a punishment ! And can 
alms-giving be a punishment, save to the worshiper of 
money ? What are the prayers or alms worth that are 
offered or given as a punishment ? 

The penance enjoined and the austerities voluntarily 
practiced are sometimes very singular when consider- 
ed in the light of making atonement for sins. Some- 
times they consist in a set number of '' Our Fathers" 
and '' Hail Marys" counted on the beads or fingers once 
or oftener a day for so many days ; sometimes in fast- 
ing for a given time, on given days, from meat, eggSj 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 161 

Modified by the priest. Curious austerities. Burlesque. 

&c. ; sometimes in a short pilgrimage to Saint John's 
Well or Saint Patrick's ; sometimes, in Ireland, in go- 
ing to the Seven Stations, and walking on hare knees 
on the ground from one station to another. The pen- 
ances enjoined by the priest are optional and multiform, 
and are modified according to his own prejudices and 
the dignity of the confessing penitent. Some of the 
voluntary austerities are curious enough. St. Domi- 
nic, when a child, would leave his cradle and lie upon 
the cold ground. I have seen many an urchin do this 
whose name is not yet, and is not likely to be, in the 
calendar. St. Francis used to call his body Brother 
Ass, and whip it as badly as Balaam did his. Saint 
Francis Loyola put on iron chains and a hair shirt, and 
flogged himself thrice a day. He deserved it all ! St. 
Macarius went naked six months in a desert, suffering 
himself to be stung with flies, to atone for the sin of 
having killed a flea ! Now, is it not a wicked bur- 
lesque upon the religion of Grod to make ignorant peo- 
ple believe that in these and similar ways they secure 
an exchange of eternal punishment ? Language sup- 
plies no words in which I can express to you my deep 
abhorrence of your sacrament of penance. 

Picture to yourself, reverend sir, this whole thing. 
There is a papist who has sinned grievously after bap- 
tism : how can he get to heaven ? Through the sac- 
rament of penance. It is not sufficient that he repent 
of it ; no, he must confess to you ; then he must per- 
form all the austerities that you enjoin ; then you ab- 
solve him ; and then, taking up the key that hangs by 
your girdle, you open to him the kingdom of heaven. 



162 . kirwan's letters 

Blasphemous assumption. Spaniels. A question. 

So J then, it is in your power to say who shall and who 
shall not enter heaven. What blasphemous assump- 
tion, when the divine Savior tells me, and proclaims 
to all men, that " he that believeth on the Son hath 
life." Such assumptions are only worthy of the world's 
scorn. 

It is amazing how men pretending to be religious 
could contrive such a sacrament. It is amazing how 
rational men can believe it. But it is not amazing 
how men believing it, and in the power with which it 
clothes you, should fawn at your feet as spaniels. It 
is no wonder that they pour their treasures into your 
coffers as water. 

I believe in repentance, and hope I am not a stran- 
ger to it. I reject penance as a priestly device to rob 
the people of their money and ruin their souls. Your 
Church must lay aside this terrible sacrament before I 
return to her embrace. 

Before closing, let me ask you one question : Do you 
believe that none go to heaven from New York but 
those to whom you and your priests, with your keys, 
open its gates ? It takes a hard heart and a soft head 
to believe this. I charge you with neither. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. .163 

Miraculous power. A fear The claim vindicated. 



LETTER IV. 

Miracles. — Milner-s Vindication. — Many Examples. — Legends of the 
Saints. — A Miracle of my own working. — Why so few Miracles 
since the Reformation. 

My dear Sir,— -Another reason which prevents my 
return to the hosom of your Church I draw from the 
miraculous poiver claimed for your saints and clergy. 
I have felt disposed to say nothing on this subject, be- 
cause of the extravagance of the claim itself, and be- 
cause of my reluctance to state the absurdities which 
crowd the legends of your saints, and which your 
Church has palmed, and yet palms, on the world as 
miracles. I feel afraid that some candid papist will 
conclude that I have at last commenced drawing on 
my imagination, and that the influence of my former 
reasoning with him will be weakened by the utter, the 
intense absurdity of the miracles claimed for your 
saints which I shall quote. But, pledging myself to 
fairness of statement, I will risk the consequences. 

Milner, as you know, devotes his twenty-third let- 
ter to vindicate the possession of this power by your 
Church. He says, " The Catholic Church being al- 
ways the beloved spouse of Christ, and continuing at 
all times to bring forth children of heroic sanctity, 
God fails not in this, any more than in past ages, to il- 
lustrate her and them by unquestionable miracles : ac- 
cordingly, in those processes which are constantly go- 
ing on at the Apostolical See for the canonization of 



164 kiravan's letters 

Prophetic nun. Arrowsmith's hand. Mary Wood. 

new saints, fresh miracles of a recent date continue to 
be proved, with the highest degree of evidence, as I can 
testify from having perused, on the spot, the official 
printed account of some of them." And miraculous 
power is claimed by all your writers, and is put forth 
as an evidence of yours being the true Church ; and its 
absence from Protestant churches is considered by you 
a conclusive evidence against them. 

Milner not only claims this power for your Church, 
but gives the following miracles that were performed, 
to his own certain knowledge and belief: Twenty 
years before it happened, a nun predicted the fate of 
the King and Queen of France, Louis XVI. and his 
consort, who were beheaded. In 1814, Joseph Lamb 
fell from a hay-rick and injured his spine. At G-ars- 
wood, in England, is preserved the hand of one Arrow- 
smith, a priest, who was put to death at Lancaster in 
the reign of Charles I. Lamb was signed on the back 
by this hand with the sign of the cross, and was in- 
stantly healed! In 1809, Mary Wood, in striving to 
open a window, greatly injured her arm, so as almost 
to lose the use of it. She employed physicians in vain. 
She finally had recourse to G-od through St. Winfred, 
by a Novena — ^that is, prayers offered for nine days. 
She put a piece of moss from the saint's well on her 
arm, and it was instantly restored ! Miss Winifred 
White, for some time diseased with a curvature of the 
spine, was healed in an instant of time by bathing in 
Holywell ! Milner was not a witness of any of these 
miracles, but they were proved true to his satisfaction ! 
Marvelous marvels ! 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 165 



Oxford divines. Many miracles. Fervent piety. 

Now, sir, permit me to add to these miracles a few 
others from the Legends of the Saints, and no doubt 
equally well attested as those adduced by the learned 
Milner. As I have but few of these legends before me, 
I will quote from a recent review of the '' Lives of the 
English Saints," now in a course of publication by 
those marvelous men, the Oxford divines, worthy of a 
place in the museum as Protestant curiosities. 

Somewhere near York, St. Augustine restored a blind 
man to his sight. St. Sulpicius, when a mere child, 
drove away, with the sign of the cross, two black de- 
mons who strove to scare him from his devotions. St. 
Amatus miraculously stopped a lofty rock in its de- 
scent, with which a fiend sought to crush him in his 
cell. The father of St. Furceus contracted a clandes- 
tine marriage with a king's daughter. When the king 
found that she was likely to be a mother, he ordered 
her to be burned. She shed such a flood of tears as to 
put out the fire. Finding he could not burn, he ban- 
ished her, and Furceus was born in a foreign land. St. 
Mochua had to call the stags from the forest to feed the 
multitude of his followers. He ordered their picked 
bones to be placed in their skins, and by an incantation 
over the skins and bones, the stags were brought to 
life, jumped up, and ran back to the woods. St. Eu- 
chadius did the same with an old favorite crow that he 
had to kill to provide meat for his guests. The piety 
of St. Fechin was so fervent, that when he bathed him- 
self in cold water, the water became almost boihng 
hot. When St. Mochua wanted a fire in his cell, he 
called down a fire from heaven to light it. St. Goar 



166 kirwan's letters 



Marvelous marvels. Thievish crows. The ass. 

of Treves, wanting a beam to hang up his cape, hung 
it on a sunbeam, where it remained until he took it 
down. St. Columbanus miraculously kept the grubs 
from his cabbage. When St. Mael was in want of 
fishes, he caught them on dry ground ; and St. Berach, 
when in want of fruit, made willows to bear apples. 
St. Fechin, when hungry, turned acorns into pork. In 
traveUng, he was stopped by a large tree which fell 
across his road ; he commanded it to make way, and 
it instantly rose to its place. He built a mill on a hill- 
top : being asked about the water, he went to a lake a 
mile distant, into which he threw his stick ; the stick 
followed him on his return, and the water after it, and 
the mill worked finely. Some thievish crows carried 
away some of the thatch of St. Cuthbert's hut to build 
their nests : at his rebuke, they not only made an apol- 
ogy, but they brought him a piece of hog's lard to make 
amends for the injury. To this miracle Bede testifies. 
A raven plucked out the eye of an ass of St. James of 
Tarentaise : the saint made a hasty invocation, and 
the raven immediately returned and put the eye in its 
place, without the least injury to the ass. St. Augus- 
tine was treated with insults in a certain town in En- 
gland, the fishmongers being especially active in the 
bad work, hanging the tails of fish upon his garments 
and those of his followers. For generations afterward, 
the children of that place were born with tails. 

Your legends narrate miracles like these to any 
amount ; and they are now reproduced from the French 
and English press, for the purpose of encouraging the 
faith of the pious ! Wonderful as these are, they are 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 167 

St. Fechin. St. Francis. St. Fechin beaten. 

by no means more wonderful than many narrated in 
'Hhe Legends of the Canonized of 1839," a took pub- 
lished in Rome, and translated and published by Car- 
dinal Wiseman in London. 

And some of the saints wrought a profusion of mir- 
acles. St. Fechin was a wonderful hand at them. 
St. Francis far surpassed the Savior himself. Christ 
was transfigured but once — St. Francis more than 
twenty times. St. Francis and his disciples restored 
more than a thousand blind to sight — and more than 
a thousand lame to the use of their limbs — and more 
than a thousand dead to life ! 

Now, sir, while these things are gravely narrated in 
your legends, and are read by your common people, 
from your own books, with the most pious belief in 
their truth, it is more than probable that this state- 
ment of them will be denounced as a bundle of Prot- 
estant lies ! "When a boy, I read a life of St. Francis 
Xavier, which narrated miracles wrought by him far 
surpassing any here cited. 

But why go to the miracles of the legends ? You are 
daily performing miracles which come up to any of 
them ! Your daily changing of a wafer into the real 
body of Christ, and then eating him, beats any thing 
St. Fechin ever did. Your preparing an old sinner for 
heaven by rubbing him with olive oil, and then open- 
ing its gates to him by the keys which are only in 
your possession, far surpasses Fechin's turning acorns 
to pork. "We believe the swine themselves are con- 
stantly doing this work of transubstantiation in our 
western woods. And in Ireland your priests are con- 



168 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Heated tongs. My own miracles. The devirs horns. 

stantly performing miraculous cures on men and cat- 
tle. Even your common people there work miracles. 
When a thunder-storm is raging, they kindle a fire, 
and heat the tongs red-hot. This preserves their cat- 
tle from the lightning. If they are killed notwith- 
standing, it is in chastisement for some sins not con- 
fessed, or some penances not rightly performed. Per- 
haps, sir, it may astonish you when I tell you that I 
myself, while yet in your faith, wrought two or three. 
Near my father's residence was a wood in which a 
man was once killed. His ghost was regularly seen 
after dark. I never passed through that wood with- 
out crossing myself, and saying Hail Mary ; and I as- 
sure you I never saw the ghost ! After dusk, in the 
spring of the year, I was sent on an errand to a neigh- 
bor's house, which was separated from ours by two or 
three fields. As I ran along, I saw through the mag- 
nifying twilight what was obviously an evil spirit. 
I stopped suddenly, and the sweat commenced pour- 
ing. Naturally of a resolute spirit, I thus reasoned : 
If I run back, he can catch me ; if I go forward, he can 
but catch me. So, after saying my Hail Mary, and 
crossing myself, I went forward with a trembling step. 
As I advanced, the horns of the fiend became perfectly 
obvious. Almost dead with fear, I rushed forward and 
caught hold of them ; and, marvelous to narrate, those 
fiendish horns were instantly turned into the handles 
of a plow ! Now I submit it to you, sir, whether these 
miracles wrought by myself are not as great as those 
wrought by St. Mochua or St. Columbanus ? And yet 
I fear my chance for canonization is exceedingly small. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 169 

Solicitation. Worthless. Will you do it ? 

I would ask you to interfere for me ; but, as the Pope 
has not yet granted you the red cap and stockings, I 
fear your influence at the Vatican, as in America, is 
on the wane. 

But, considering the grave effects which have fol- 
lowed this claim of yours, it ought not, perhaps, to he 
treated lightly, and yet it is difficult to treat it other- 
wise. 

Now, sir, will you say that the miracles adduced by 
Milner are worthy of a moment's consideration ? Look 
at them again. A man hurt his back by falUng from 
a hay-rick, and is cured by a dead man's hand ! A 
girl, in opening a window^, cut her arm, and felt diffi- 
culty in using it ; she puts on a piece of moss, and her 
arm gets well ! Another girl has a diseased spine ; she 
is cured by bathing in Holywell ! Are these proofs to 
any mind that your Church possesses miraculous pow- 
er ? If these are not, can the miracles selected from 
the legends of the Middle Ages be ? 

Can you, for a moment, place any of your miracles 
on an equality with those wrought by the Savior and 
his apostles ? Milner does it, sad I am to say, but wdll 
you, John Hughes, do it, and in the city of New York ? 
What ! place these marvels of lying legends, the pro- 
ductions of infamous monks of the Dark Ages, who 
made saints of necromancers, and miracles of witch 
stories, on the same foundation as the miracles of 
Christ ! Will you gravely tell us that if we deny the 
one we must deny the other ? If I deny that the fer- 
vor of the piety of St. Fechin almost made the cold 
water to boil in which he bathed, must I also deny 

H 



170 kirwan's letters 

Scriptural and popish miracles. Why none in New York. 

that Christ raised Lazarus from the grave ? "Will you, 
claiming to be a bishop in the Church of Grod, say that 
these miracles are sustained by evidence equally con- 
clusive as those of the Scriptures ? This I will only 
believe when you say so. 

Compare the object of scriptural and popish mira- 
cles. The one are divine attestations to the truth; 
the other, to yours being the true Church. How dif- 
ferent these objects ! And they are no more different 
than the miracles. And in point of force and evidence, 
Milner's miracles can not be compared to those of Irv- 
ing, or of our own Mormons. Indeed, a common trav- 
eling juggler could beat them all. 

If your Church possesses miraculous power, why so 
sparing of its use since the Reformation ? If they are 
not all impostures, why so many in Ireland, while there 
are none in Scotland ; why so many in France and 
Spain, and so few in New York ? Come out in the 
open view of some intelligent Protestants, and cure a 
man that was born blind, or raise one from the grave 
that lay there until putrefaction commenced, and then 
we will ask you to excuse the utter scorn with which, 
until then, we must treat your impostures. My dear 
sir, the world will not forget the history of Hohenlohe, 
the modern St. Fechin. He was forbidden to work his 
miracles save in the presence of some commissioners 
and physicians : he appealed to the Pope. The holy 
father enjoined him to conform. From that hour his 
miracles have ceased. 

" Ghosts prudently withdraw at peep of day." 

Miracles were vouchsafed by God divinely to attest 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 171 

Miracles withdrawn. Nearest to them. Bad asthma. 

the truth of the Grospel. This power was vouchsafed 
to the apostles, and was continued in the Church un- 
til the truth of the Grospel was established. Then it 
was withdrawn. Since the rise of popery there has 
been no miracle wrought. The nearest approach to 
one that I now remember, for fourteen hundred years, 
is the fact that your Church could gain such a gener- 
al credence for its absurdities, and make men believe 
that she could work miracles. 

You must give up your lying legends and your claim 
to miraculous power before I can return to your fold. 
I feel as did our fellow-countryman with the bad asth- 
ma, who exclaimed, '' If once I can get this trouble- 
some breath out of my body, I'll take good care it shall 
never get in again." 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 



172 kirwan's letters 

Exclusive claims. Poor man's catechism. 



LETTER V. 

Marks of the Papal being the true Church considered. — Unity — Sancti- 
ty — Catholicity — Apostolicity — Infallibility. 

Reverend and dear Sir, — In the present letter I 
wish to place before you another of my reasons for not 
returning to the Church of my fathers, drawn from the 
exclusive claims of your (7A^^rcA— -claims which, if 
well founded, consign to eternal damnation all who re- 
fuse to believe its doctrines or to submit to its authori- 
ty. That these claims are put forth, you will not deny. 
You glory in them. Milner and Butler assert them, 
and seek to sustain them by Scripture and reason. 
'' The Poor Man's Catechism," from which I like to 
quote, because it is the channel through which you 
seek to impress the common mind, says, " Those who 
submit not to the doctrine and authority of the Holy 
Catholic Church are all out of her communion; as 
pagans, infidels, Turks, Jews, heretics, and schismat- 
ics." And by the Holy Catholic Church is meant that 
church whose head is the Pope. This is sufficiently 
explicit. So that, in your estimation and in that of 
your Church, the Protestant churches around you are 
no better than Jewish synagogues or pagan temples ; 
the people that worship in them are no better than 
Turks or pagans ; and such men as the late excellent 
Milnor, as Spring, Knox, Bangs, "Williams, Wainwright, 
Skinner, your contemporaries, and equals, and fellow- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 173 

Treated as infidels. Logical guillotine. 

citizens, are no better than Hume, Voltaire, Gribton, or, 
at least, than Jewish rabbis, Turkish muftis, or Hin- 
doo priests who mingle their blood with their sacrifices. 
That such is your belief is apparent in your conduct.' 
You and your priests so treat them. The belief of; 
your people is, that all beyond the pale of your Church 
are devoted to destruction. I remember the day when 
I had no more doubt of it than of my own existence. 
If there are papists who believe otherwise, and who ex- 
ercise a charitable hope as to the salvation of Protest- 
ants — as I believe there are many — so far forth they 
are not papists. That the number of such is rapidly 
multiplying in our country should prove to you how 
rapidly your terrible system is falling to pieces. 

The process by which you reach this terrible dogma 
is a very short one. There is no salvation out of the 
true Church ; the Roman Catholic is the true Church; 
therefore there is no salvation out of the Roman Cath- 
olic Church. Here is your logical and theological 
guillotine, by which you sever the hopes which bind 
millions of your race to G-od and heaven, who serve 
one and deserve the other at least as well as you do. 
And, then, the marks of yours being the true Church 
you parade before us with as much confidence as if 
they were true, and with as much assurance as if they 
were never, instead of being a thousand times, refuted. 
Permit me, in the briefest manner, to consider each of 
these marks. They are Unity, Sanctity, Catholicity, 
Apostolicity, and Infallibility. 

Your first mark is Unity. Has your Church this 
mark ? In what one thing are you united ? Not in 



174 kirwan's letters 

Unity. Where found. Fierce contests. 

the head of the Church. You have a Pope ; some say, 
others deny, that he is the head. One goes for the 
Pope, another for a general council, a third for both 
united. Is this unity ? But, if we admit your unity, 
what follows? Does the agreement of numbers in 
maintaining error and superstition prove that in which 
they are united true ? Then paganism, Mohammed- 
anism, and Budhism may be proved divine. These 
systems have more followers than you can boast. 

You are not agreed as to the authoritative councils 
of your Church. You are yet agitated by controver- 
sies on the subject. Nor are you agreed in the doc- 
trines of the Bible. Never were Arminians and Cal- 
vinists more widely separated on these matters than 
you are. Look at the fierce contentions of your Jan- 
senists and Jesuits, unsettled to the present hour. If 
united, what meant the fierce controversies of your 
Scotists and Thomists ? of your canonists and school- 
men ? of your Nominalists and Realists ? But I can 
not weary you and my readers on this matter. You 
talk about the differences among Protestants ; they 
are not to be compared to those among papists. You 
put into my hand Bossuet's ^'Variations of Protest- 
ants ;" I put into yours '' Edgar's Variations of Pope- 
ry." Where Protestants differ in one point, papists dif- 
fer in five ; where they differ in minor matters, you 
differ in the veriest essentials. Protestants agree as 
to the Head of the Church, Christ, and as to the rule 
of the Church, the Bible. You diflfer as to both. 

True, you have an apparent external unity, but 
how have you gotten it ? What is it worth ? You 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 175 

Lopping off. Horrible slavery. Sanctity. 

set up monstrous claims, and all who do not admit 
them you cast ojff. Milner's " Apostolical Tree" shows 
how the work of lopping off has progressed. You have 
laid the axe upon every green and fruitful branch, 
and the old stump and withered branches remain, a 
unity ! And what is your unity worth ? If I return 
to your Church, " I must believe whatever the Holy 
Catholic Church believes and teaches." This I must 
do without knowing, and without ever being able to 
know, all that she believes and teaches. I must put 
myself into your hands, and give you power to think 
for me and to believe for me ; and then I must be- 
lieve and swear to what you thus think and believe 
for me, at the peril of being cut off and cast into the 
fire. Sir, this is horrible slavery. Do you think men 
will long submit to it ? 

Your boasted unity is a fable, your apparent unity 
is slavery. You present a united front in your oppo- 
sition to Protestants, but never were the bowels of the 
victim of the Asiatic cholera more terribly convulsed 
than is the bosom of your Church by distracting con- 
troversies. Your priests, and bishops, and people may 
fight as they may, but they are a unity as long as they 
remain within the same organization. If one of them 
secedes, if you can not kill him, you damn him, for the 
sake of unity. 

Your next mark is Sanctity. I admit that sancti- 
ty, or holiness, is a mark of a true disciple and of a 
true church. The people and Church of Christ should 
be holy in all manner of conversation. Sanctity you 
claim for your Church as one of its distinguishing 



176 kirwan's letters 

Doctrines corrupted. Sacraments. Fruits of holiness. 

marks. But in what is it manifested? You reply, 
first, in her doctrines. But what doctrine of the Bible 
has not your Church corrupted ? What institution 
has it not perverted ? And so conscious is your Church 
of this, that it withholds the unadulterated word from 
the people. You reply again, in the means of holi- 
ness. By these you mean the sacraments. But you 
have grievously perverted the only two sacraments in- 
stituted by Christ, and you have added to them five 
which have no divine authority, and whose only object 
is to give you power, and to obtain for you ^'the alms 
and the suffrages of the faithful." You reply again, 
in her fruits of holiness. By these you mean the vir- 
tues practiced by papists. I could not, for a moment, 
deny the true piety of many papists, the exalted piety 
of some ; but will you, sir, assert that the piety and 
virtues of your people are so much more resplendent 
than those of any, or all other people, as to mark yours 
as the true Church ? If so, it seems to me that you 
would assert that Jupiter surpasses the moon, and the 
moon the sun, in brightness. The evidences to the 
contrary are no more apparent in the one case than in 
the other. Look at the mass of your clergy in the 
sunniest days of your Church, and what were their 
fruits of holiness? Your own historians being wit- 
nesses, what were the fruits of your nunneries, your 
monasteries, your monks, and your other orders, when 
there were no Protestants to unveil their enormities ? 
What are now the fruits of your religion in the states 
of South America ? Have you seen the testimony of 
Mr. Thompson, our late minister to Mexico, as to the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 177 

Comparison at home. Catholicity. Tested. 

papal clergy of that country ? As to the fruits of holi- 
ness, compare Spain, Italy, with Scotland or New En- 
gland. 

But I will not proceed with the comparison farther 
than to ask you to compare the Protestant ministry of 
New York with the papal — the congregation of St. 
Patrick's with any large and wealthy Protestant con- 
gregation in the city, as to the fruits of holiness, and 
you yourself will be astonished at the difference. The 
general rule is, that purely papal countries are those 
most debased and immoral, and purely Protestant coun- 
tries are those most enlightened, and most abounding 
in every good work. The tenth century, the noonday 
of popery, was the midnight of our race. Nor does the 
history of the world present such evidences of unbri- 
dled, overgrown depravity as does the history of your 
Church. 

Your next mark is Catholicity. You claim this 
title for your Church as to time, persons, and places. 
As to time, your Church rose upon the ruins of that 
founded by Christ and his apostles, and centuries after 
their death. The peculiar doctrines and ceremonies of 
popery were derived from the heathen, and were in- 
grafted on Christianity. Instead of your Church, as 
you claim, being identified with that of Christ and his 
apostles, there is not an essential particular in which 
it is not in opposition to it. I admit, as to persons, 
that yours is a very numerous Church ; but it never 
formed a third part of Christendom. Is the standard 
of truth the numbers that profess it ? Then Chris- 
tianity was a lie while in the minority ; and so it is a 

H2 



178 kirwan's letters 

An empty boast. Apostolicity. Tested. 



lie yet, because, taking our whole race together, vastly 
in the minority. So I admit, as to places, that popery 
is very v^idely diffused. But is not Protestantism also ? 
Where has a papist gained foothold where there is not 
a Protestant ? So that your claim to this mark is as 
absurd as it is groundless. Your catholicity is a vain 
and empty boast. There is a catholic Church, but it 
is not yours. 

Your next mark is Apostolicity — ^that is, a regular 
succession from the apostles in the chair of St. Peter. 
Now, sir, this claim is put forth by other churches as 
strongly as yours, and on foundations even stronger 
than yours. I now refer to the Armenian, Nestorian, 
and Syriac churches, which were founded before the 
Gospel was preached at Rome. It is beyond the pow- 
er of man to establish this claim. If established, must 
we receive as a true minister every man coming to us 
in the regular line, whatever be his doctrines or mor- 
als? "What is the test of apostolicity? Is it succes- 
sion or doctrines? Most obviously doctrines. '^ If 
there come any one unto you, ajid bring not this doc- 
trine^ receive him not into your house, neither bid him 
Grod speed." Standing upon this one text, I would 
turn you away from my door, even had I seen the 
hands of all the apostles upon your head, unless you 
preached their doctrines. Why, the strong language 
of Paul would even warrant me to curse you, coming 
to me with your claim of succession, without apostoli- 
cal doctrine. Read it : " But though we^ or an angel 
from heaven^ preach any other Grospel unto you than 
that we have preached, let him be accursed." Sir, if 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 179 

Succession from Judas. Infallibility. How ? 

I try your succession by your doctrine, the true test of 
succession, I could soon place you among those who 
said they were apostles, and were not. From what 
apostle, save Judas, many are descended who are cry- 
ing out apostolical succession ! apostolical succession ! 
I can not conceive. 

Your next mark is Infallibility, Under all the 
circumstances of the case, this claim is truly ludicrous. 
Where is the seat of infallibility ? Some say it resides 
in the Pope. But how is he made infallible ? The 
Pope dies, and an election for a new one is ordered. 
He is to be elected from the cardinals — all fallible men, 
if no worse. After endless intrigue, and boundless cor- 
ruption, and numerous ballotings, the lot falls upon a 
falhble cardinal. "Will you tell me how such an elec- 
tion makes him infallible ? But others say that the 
Pope is not infallible, and that he may be deposed for 
heresy ; so that here you are divided. 

Some say the seat of infallibility is a general coun- 
cil ; but how is this ? Here are three hundred fallible 
men assembled in general council : how do they be- 
come infallible ? Will you tell me the process ? How 
do finites make an infinite ? Heap them up as you 
may, are they not a heap of finites ? and crowd togeth- 
er as many fallible men as you may, are they any 
thing else than a crowd of fallibles ? But by what 
chemical or alchemical process can you deduce the in- 
fallible from the fallible ? 

Nor is this the worst. We find one general council 
denouncing another — the Church of one age contra- 
dicting the Church of another. The seat of infallibil- 



180 kirwan's letters 

Proofs of fallibility. Mother of harlots. Simply wicked. 

ity is thus undetermined by you, while the proofs of 
your Church's fallibihty fill the world. It is infallibly 
certain that your Church is fallible. 

Thus is your Church utterly destitute of every mark 
of being the true Church, which you claim for it. Its 
unity is discord or slavery — its sanctity is corruption 
— its catholicity is assumption — its apostolicity and in- 
fallibility each a lie. Could I speak of your Church in 
the masculine and feminine gender, as do some of your 
writers, instead of admitting her to be the one holy, 
catholic, apostolical, and infallible Church, I would call 
her the mother of harlots and the father of lies — ^the 
man of sin fully revealed, with " powers, and signs, 
and lying v/onders." 

And yet, while common sense rejects your claims, 
and common reason disproves them, and the Bible de- 
nies them, unless in the case of invincible ignorance, 
you cut off all beyond your pale from all communion 
with Grod — from all hope of heaven ! I regard this as 
simply wicked. To gain your point, you rob the Father 
of us all of his goodness ; man you drive to despair, and 
you convert G-od into a tyrant. If a boat were as rot- 
ten as I believe your Church to be, I would not trust it 
to carry me across the North River ; and yet it claims 
the entire monopoly of carrying to heaven all the souls 
that ever enter it, and for no reason, human or divine, 
that I can see, unless it be for the freight and the toll ! 

My Bible tells me, sir, that whosoever believeth in 
the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved. The sincere 
believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, whether in your 
Church, or other churches, or in no church, form a part 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 181 

True believers. The world revolts. 

of that church which Christ will present to the Father 
without spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing. By set- 
ting up its claim to be the only true Church — ^by deny- 
ing salvation to all but your own members, with the 
exception of the invincibly ignorant, you deny this doc- 
trine of the Bible and of my faith ; you lay down a 
principle, unsustained by sense or Scripture, from which 
the mind of the world revolts, and from which my soul 
turns away as from a thing the most offensive. Your 
exclusive claims must be proved or abandoned, from 
their Alpha to their Omega, before I can return to your 
Church. 

With respecty yours, Kirwan. 



182 kirwan's letters 

Relics. What they are. To be honored. 



LETTER VI. 

Relics. — Relics the Parent of Miracles. — The Importance of Relics. 
— Specimens of Relics. — The Abuses of Relics. — Indulgences — To 
whom and by whom granted — Their fearful Effects. 

• Reverend and dear Sir,— Permit me to ask your 
kind attention, in the present letter, to two more ob- 
jections which prevent my return to your Church, 
drawn from your use of relics and indulgences. The 
importance which you attach to these things, and the 
evils which flow from them, demand a letter for the 
due consideration of each ; but I will consider them 
both in one, and, as I trust, without weakening the 
force of my objections. 

'' Relics are the dead bodies or bones of saints, and 
whatever belonged to them in their mortal lifeP The 
clause I place in italics enables you to multiply them 
indefinitely. These relics are honored with an inferior 
and relative, but not with divine honor. And they are 
honored, 1st, because they were the temples of God ; 
2dly, because they are to be raised from the dead ; 3dly, 
because of their miraculous power ; 4thly , because they 
encourage the faithful to imitate their virtues. This 
is Challoner's account of them, with which that of Mil- 
ner agrees. 

This doctrine of relics is intimately connected with 
that of miracles — it flows from it. The man who per- 
formed miracles when living, should be, after death, 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 183 

Relics and miracles. Mine of wealth. Names of churches. 

highly honored ; his bones may perform them after 
death; and, as in many cases they do perform them, 
their rehcs should be honored with an inferior and rel- 
ative, but not with a divine honor. Here is the link 
which connects your doctrine of relics with your mir- 
acles. 

Relics are matters of immense importance to Rome. 
They are to your churches what the ark of the cove- 
nant, and the pot of manna, and Aaron's rod that bud- 
ded, were to the Jewish temple. Hence the prodigious 
efforts of past ages to obtain relics, and the enormous 
prices paid for them in order to place them in church- 
es, and the sleepless vigilance with which they have 
been guarded, lest they should be stolen for the adorn- 
ing of new churches by their virtues. They have been 
more than mines of wealth to Holy Mother, as they 
have brought her the gold and the silver, without the 
trouble of mining, smelting, or coining it. 

If a bone or a relic of a saint could be secured for a 
new church, the church was called by his name, and 
placed under his guardianship. This is the origin of 
calling churches after the names of saints. And thus 
nations were placed under the guardianship of saints, 
as Ireland under that of St. Patrick, Scotland under 
that of St. Andrew, England under that of St. George. 
So, also, cities were placed under the care of saints, and 
their relics were esteemed as imparting far greater se- 
curity against assault than cannon, walls, or bulwarks. 
Constantine, you know, defended the town of Nisibis 
with the dead body of St. James ; and when the Em- 
peror Leo desired to secure the relics of St. Simon the 



184 kirwan's letters 

Body of Simon. Amusing relics. Those in St. John Lateran. 

Stylite from Antioch for the purpose of defense, the 
prudent citizens repHed, '' Our city has no walls, and 
we have brought here the body of Simon, that it might 
serve us in the stead of walls and bulwarks." And so 
individuals are placed under a guardian saint, or they 
select one for themselves. I remember, when a boy, I 
had one myself, but his name I am utterly unable to 
recall. I have no doubt but that you will say he was 
a careless fellow. 

There is, I learn, an authentic list of the relics deem- 
ed true possessed and published by your Church. I 
have never seen it. It must be a very curious book. 
In the absence of your catalogue, I select a few of the 
relics greatly venerated by papists from books of au- 
thority that lie before me. They are almost as amus- 
ing as your miracles. I will omit those too offensive to 
be named, out of respect for you, my readers, and my- 
self.^ 

The arms, legs, fingers, toes, of the saints are great- 
ly multiplied. There are eight arms of St. Matthew, 
three of St. John, and almost any number of St. Thom- 
as a Becket. There are, in the Church of St. John 
Lateran, the ark made by Moses in the wilderness, the 
rod of Moses, and the table on which the Last Supper 
was instituted by the Savior. The table is entirely 
at Rome ; but there are many pieces of it in other 
places. On the altar of the Lateran are the heads of 
Peter and Paul entire ; but there are pieces of them 
in Bilboa, greatly honored by the monks. St. Peter's 
Church is blessed with the cross of the penitent thief; 

* See Letters to Chief Justice Taney, p. 117. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 185 

Pieces of the cross. St Patrick's stick. MichaePs shield. 

with the lantern of Judas ; with the dice used by the 
soldiers in casting lots for the Savior's garments ; with 
the tail of Balaam's ass, and with the axe, saw, and 
hammer of St. Joseph. Different churches are enrich- 
ed with pieces of the wood of the cross ; and were the 
pieces all brought together, they would make a hund- 
red crosses. In one church is some of the manna in 
the wilderness; in another, some blossoms from Aa- 
ron's rod ; in another, an arm of St. Simon ; in another, 
the picture of the Virgin painted by Luke ; in another, 
one of her combs ; in another, the combs of the apos- 
tles, but little used ; in another, a part of the body of 
St. Lazarus, that smells ; in another, a part of the G-os- 
pel of Mark, in his own handwriting ; in another, a fin- 
ger of St. Ann, the Virgin's sister ; in another, St. Pat- 
rick's stick, with which he drove venomous reptiles 
from Ireland ; in another, some of St. Joseph's breath, 
caught by an angel in a vial ; in another, a piece of 
the rope with which Judas hung himself; in another, 
some of the Virgin's hair ; in another, some of her 
milk. And the monks once showed among their reUcs 
the spear and shield with which Michael encountered 
the dragon of Revelation ; and some relic-monger had 
a feather from the wing of the Holy Spirit, when, tak- 
ing the form of a dove, he abode upon Christ at his bap- 
tism ! On the miracles wrought by the relics of the 
saints I have already sufficiently dwelt. They are va- 
rious and very numerous."^ 

I will not, I can not, here dwell upon the awful 
abuses of your doctrine of relics ; on the robbery of all 

* See Letters to Chief Justice Taney, p. 108. 



186 kirwan's letters 

Horrible frauds. Where their origin 1 Where tlieir virtue 1 

kinds of graves in Palestine, and the hawking of pil- 
fered bones all over Europe ; on the selling of old wood, 
sufficient to warm a small town through the winter, 
as pieces of the cross ; on the selling of hands and feet 
of particular saints, until the proof is positive that some 
of the favored ones had as many hands as Briareus, and 
as many feet as the crawling worm we call the centi- 
pede. I turn from the abuse to the doctrine. 

Now, sir, where is the origin of your doctrine of rel- 
ics ? Can you find a trace of it in the New Testament ? 
Will you for a moment compare the sham miracles 
wrought at the tombs of some of your saints with that 
wrought by the bones of a prophet of Israel ? Will 
you dare to say that the curing of a sore throat by a 
dead man's hand is to be placed on the same ground 
with the miraculous cures of the apostles ? I venerate 
the names — I would even decorate the tombs of the 
good ; but what virtue is there in a bone from the 
body of Paul, or Peter, or in a slip of wood from the 
cross, or in a strand from the rope with which Judas 
hung himself, or in some hairs from the tail of the 
beast which Balaam whipped ? 

If relics ever performed miracles, why do they not 
perform some now ? Is the virtue of all your old bones 
exhausted ? Where is the holy coat of Treves ? Where 
now are the pilgrims to the bones of Becket ? Where 
is your shop in New York for the sale of holy teeth, 
and holy fingers, and holy bones, taken from the graves 
of the saints? Sir, the whole matter is one of the 
vilest impositions ever practiced upon the credulity of 
man. I do not charge you with believing a word of 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 187 

Indulgence. Defined. To whom granted, and for what. 

it. I could almost as soon believe in the virtue of the 
paring of the toe-nails of some of your saints, as admit 
that a man of your sense can believe in these things. 
Why not cast the influence of your name and office 
against this vilest of all vile impositions ? 

But I must hasten to a brief consideration of your 
doctrine of Indulgence ; and how shall I characterize 
it? 

Your Church teaches that sins of a certain charac- 
ter deserve temporal and eternal punishment. Penance 
secures the remission of the latter ; indulgence releases 
from the former ; so that indulgences secure a release 
from the debt of temporal punishment. 

No person but a lineal descendant of St. Peter can 
grant an indulgence ; and that all such have the pow- 
er of granting them is clearly proved by the fact that 
the Savior gave the keys to Peter, and told him that 
whatsoever he bound or loosed on earth should be bound 
or loosed in heaven. 

Indulgences can be only granted to those who have 
by penance secured the remission of eternal punish- 
ment, and they can be granted even to such only for a 
good cause or motive. Unless the cause or motive is 
a good one^ heaven does not loose what the bishop 
looses. The causes or motives deemed good are '' the 
doing of great works for the glory of God and the pub- 
lic benefit of the Church, such as the propagation of 
the Catholic faith, building churches, alms," &c. And 
the way in which the bishop secures the remission of 
the temporal punishment of the indulged onc'^he draws 
upon the satisfaction of Christ and his saints, called 



188 kirwan's letters 

A curiosity. David. The authority of the Church. 

"the treasure of the Church," and offers the draft to 
Grod as an equivalent for the punishment due to the 
individual ! I do think that some heated controver- 
sialists have distorted this doctrine of your Church, but 
you will not say that this is a distortion of it. It is 
taken, almost literally, from Challoner and Milner. 

The illustration of Milner of the working of the thing 
is a curiosity in its way. It is drawn from 2 Sam., 
12th chapter. David, by the murder of Uriah, and by 
adultery with his wife, incurred both eternal and tem- 
poral punishment. He confessed to Nathan, and did 
penance, and eternal punishment was remitted. The 
temporal yet remained, and he suffered it all. And 
why ? There was no priest or bishop to grant him in- 
dulgence ! ! 

Such, sir, is your doctrine of indulgence. Permit 
me to give you my thoughts in reference to it. 

There is not a shadow of authority for it in the 
Scriptures. The Church has authority to receive those 
she deems worthy of membership, and to cast out of- 
fenders ; and when offenders cast out from her bosom 
have given due evidence of repentance, she has the 
power of again receiving them ; she is bound to do so. 
Upon this simple scriptural position your Church has 
erected the sacrament of penance and the doctrine of 
indulgence ! 

Nor have you a shadow of authority for prescribing 
a meritorious satisfaction to God in lieu of the penalty 
annexed to his law and pronounced against sin. I 
have already examined and exploded your claims as 
to the power of the keys, and as to binding and loosing. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 189 

A supposition. Temporal punishment. A filthy chamber. 

So unreasonable — I may say so foolish are they, that 
their assertion only exposes you to ridicule. Let us 
suppose that David were now King of the State of 
New York, with the sins of the matter of Uriah fresh 
upon him : could you go to him and say, '' May it 
please your majesty, I, John Hughes, by the power of 
binding and loosing transferred to me by Peter, will 
grant you indulgence from the temporal punishment 
due to your sins ; and that child born to you by the 
wife of Uriah shall live, by virtue of my indulgence, 
if you only build for me a splendid cruciform church, 
and endow it with regal magnificence ?" Should you 
do this, would not your conduct be branded, not only 
as revoltingly arrogant, but as blasphemous ? And is 
not this the way that many of your churches were 
built and endowed ? 

But you now lower your tone, and say that indulg- 
ences only remit the temporal punishment inflicted by 
the Church. But how does this mend the matter? 
By your power of binding or loosing, you can send a 
man to hell or to heaven ; you can inflict any punish- 
ment you see fit ; and you can demand of the penitent, 
for indulgence, any '^ good works" you see fit. Here, 
sir, is the key which unlocks a chamber in your Church, 
filled with rottenness and putrefaction more foul and 
filthy than the world has ever seen. Need I revert to 
the traflSc in indulgences so zealously promoted by your 
popes in past days ? Need I point you to their whole- 
sale manufacture by your popes — to their selling them 
by wholesale to tribes of vagabond monks, who hawk- 
ed them all over Europe at prices to suit purchasers ? 



190 kirwan's letters 

Driving a bargain. The monk. All abuse. Spiritual shops. 

The Pope drove as good a bargain as he could with 
the monks, and the monks with the people. For the 
indulgence which a poor peasant could purchase for a 
few pennies, a prince must pay pounds. The common 
sense of the world was insulted ; the yoke of Rome be- 
came too heavy for the nations longer to bear ; a poor 
monk discovered a copy of the Bible, and its truths 
filled his mind and his soul. Strong in the Lord, he 
went out from his dark cell with the lamp of life in 
his hand ; the Reformation follows ; and for the expo- 
sure of her frauds and wickedness, your Church has 
sent that poor monk to a place where the efficacy of 
seven sacraments — of all masses — of all indulgences, 
can never reach him. 

But you will say all this was the abuse of the thing. 
My dear sir, your doctrines of relics and indulgences 
have no use — they are all abuse. Guard them as you 
may in your catechisms and books, practically they are 
all abuse. Millions have prayed at the tombs of your 
saints who never offered an intelligent prayer to God 
through his Son ; millions have worshiped your relics 
who never worshiped G-od in spirit and in truth ; and 
millions have sought deliverance from sin by your pen- 
ances, and extreme unctions, and indulgences, who 
never sought it through the blood of Jesus Christ. And 
at this hour, many of your churches in Rome are noth- 
ing but splendid spiritual shops for the sale of indul- 
gences. 

The fraud which your Church has practiced on the 
world by her relics and indulgences are enormous. 
If practiced by the merchants of New York in their 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 191 

Frauds. Idolatry and license to sin. Odor. 

commercial transactions, they would send every man 
of them to state prison. For frauds amounting to 
about two miUions, a man of the name of Schuyler has 
been banished from society, and has fled the country. 
How many millions, think you, by their pious frauds, 
have your priests raised from the poorest of the people 
of New York during your episcopate ? Fraud is not 
the less fraud because committed under a religious 
garb, and by a man in vestments blazing with crosses ! 
By your doctrine of relics, you lead the people into 
idolatry on the one hand; by your doctrine of indul- 
gence, you give them a license to commit sin on the 
other ; at least, this is their practical effect. It is said 
of the holy Sturme, the disciple of St. Winifred, that in 
passing a horde of unconverted Germans as they were 
bathing in a stream, he was so overpowered by the in- 
tolerable stench of sin that arose from them that he 
nearly fainted away. Similar is the effect of the odor 
of your relics and indulgences upon me. Your Church 
must abandon them utterly before I can return to her 
communion. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 



192 kirwan's letters 

Unmeaningness. Above reason. Simplicity. 



LETTER VII. 

Unmeaningness of Romish Doctrines and Ceremonies. — Baptism. — 
The Mass. — Penance. — Extreme Unction. — Holy Water. — Prayers 
to the Saints. — Withholding the Scriptures. 

Reverend and dear Sir, — I ask your attention in 
the present letter to the consideration of another ob- 
jection, which, mountain-like, opposes my return to 
your Church, drawn from the utter unmeaningness 
of your peculiar doctrines and ceremonies. If I coin 
a new word to express my meaning, surely you will 
forgive me — you, a bishop in a Church which has coin- 
ed doctrines, and sacraments, and ceremonies without 
meaning and without end. 

When I look into the New Testament, every thing 
there is plain and simple. True, there are some doc- 
trines there taught which are above my entire com- 
prehension, but yet they are plainly taught. Having 
settled the divine authority of the Scriptures, I never 
question what they plainly teach. Its most mysteri- 
ous truths are not opposed to my reason ; they are only 
above it. When I look at the worship and ceremonies 
there enjoined, they all seem to me perfectly simple 
and expressive ; and so are the worship and ceremonies 
of almost aU the Protestant churches with which I am 
acquainted. So far as they deviate from simplicity 
and expressiveness do they deviate from the apostolical 
model. But when I turn to your Church — the Church 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 193 



Baptism. Its effects. How is this ? 

of my fathers — every thing pecuUar to it wears a con- 
trary aspect, and, to my mind, seems utterly unmean- 
ing, and frequently absurd. Permit me to illustrate 
what I mean ; and even should I occupy this letter 
with my illustrations, my only excuse to you and my 
readers is the importance of the subject. 

I begin with your sacrament of baptism. This we 
all admit to be a sacrament ; but I have now to do 
with the power and significancy which you give it, 
and the ceremonies you connect with it. 

The effects of baptism when duly administered, as 
stated by Challoner, are these : It washes away orig- 
inal sin — ^it remits all actual sin — it infuses the habit 
of divine grace into the soul — it gives a right and title 
to heaven — it makes us children and members of the 
Church. Now, sir, I have no sense by which I can 
perceive how the application of water by a priest, or a 
minister, or a laic, or a midwife, can accomplish all 
this, while testimony to the contrary addresses itself 
to all my senses. Christ died for the sins of all that 
believe in him ; it is faith in Christ that secures the 
washing away of original and actual sin ; and faith is 
the exercise of a heart renewed by the Holy Grhost. 
Being justified by faith, we have peace with G-od and 
a title to heaven. All this I can understand ; but how 
your dipping three times in water can do all this, I see 
not. What the Bible attributes to the Holy Spirit and 
to the exercise of true faith, you claim for the sacra- 
ment of baptism. 

If your doctrine of baptismal regeneration is true, 
what a singular commentary we have of it in the lives 

I 



194 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Singular commentary. Simply absurd. Ceremonies, 

of your people ! What singular manifestations of the 
habits of divine grace which your baptism infuses into 
the soul, you see daily among your people ! I only 
wonder that the facts in the case have not long since 
exploded your doctrine, and led you back to the sim- 
plicity of the sacrament as taught in the Bible ! The 
apostles administered baptism to those who confessed 
faith in Jesus Christ ; and through this sacrament we 
obtain a place and a name in the visible Church. This 
all men can understand ; but how you or any mortal 
man, by the application of water in any or all ways, 
can wash away the original and actual sins of the sin- 
ner, infuse into his soul the habits of grace, and give 
him a title to heaven, I can not comprehend. If your 
baptism could only do this, it would wonderfully mend 
the habits of many of your people, and save some of 
the criminal courts of New York a world of trouble ! 
The Sixth Ward of the city of your residence contains 
a great number of those who have been baptized with 
your baptism ; and if it '' infuses the habits of grace 
into the soul," they have a most unfortunate way of 
displaying them I Your theory is simply absurd. 

And the power you claim for it is no more unmean- 
ing than the ceremonies you connect with it. This 
sacrament ordinarily must be administered in churches 
with fonts, whose water must be blessed " on the vigils 
of Easter and Whitsunday." There must be godfa- 
thers and godmothers. The priest blows in the face 
of the subject of baptism thrice, to drive Satan out of 
him ! Then blessed salt is put in his mouth ! Then 
exorcism is performed to drive the devil out of him ! 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 195 

What means it? The Mass. Explained by Dr. England. 

This is all done in the porch of the church. Then, 
when the devil is scared away, the child is introduced 
into the church, where prayers are said. Then the 
priest puts his spittle on his ears and nose. Then he 
is anointed with holy oil, '' blessed on Maunday Thurs- 
day ;" and then he is baptized. Then he is anointed 
on the top of the head with holy chrism ; then a white 
linen cloth is placed on his head ; then a lighted can- 
dle is put in his hand ! then the ceremony is ended, 
and the person is dismissed, his sins all washed away, 
the habits of grace infused into his soul, and his title 
to heaven in his pocket ! 

Now^, sir, excite my wits as I may, I can not under- 
stand all this. It is addressed to my ignorance. Pray 
inform us what wizard devised such a ceremony. 

The whole ceremony of your Mass is yet more un- 
meaning to me. Often as I have witnessed it, I never 
gleaned one intelligent idea from it, nor does one out 
of one million of your people. I have just read through 
the labored explanation of it by Bishop England, and 
it is truly painful to see so noble a mind expending its 
powers in the vain attempt to give meaning to every 
thread of such a gossamer web — to give sense and sig- 
nificance to what is so utterly nonsensical. 

" In the Mass," says Dr. England, " Christ is the 
victim ; he is produced by the consecration, which, by 
the power of Grod, and the institution of the Redeem- 
er, and the act of the priest, place the body and blood 
of Christ, under the appearance of bread and wine, 
upon the altar ; then the priest makes an oblation of 
this victim to the Eternal Father on behalf of the peo- 



196 kirwan's letters 

Do you understand it ? Blasphemous. Pantomime. 

pie, and the victim undergoes a destructive change, 
showing forth the death of the Redeemer, and making 
commemoration thereof by the exhibition of the appar- 
ent separation of the body from the blood ; the former 
being under the appearance of bread, and the latter 
under the appearance of wine, and by the consumption 
of both by the priest." This is, on the whole, the 
clearest account of the Mass that I have ever seen from 
the pen of a priest, and yet what mind can under- 
stand it ? Sir, do you understand it ? Christ produced 
from some bread and wine by a priest; this produced 
Christ is laid upon the altar by the priest ; an oblation 
of this produced Christ is made to the Eternal Father 
by the priest; the produced Christ undergoes a de- 
structive change in the act of oblation ; this oblation 
of the produced Christ is offered for the people ; and 
then this produced, offered Christ, and after he has un- 
dergone a destructive change, is eaten by the priest ! 
Sir, all this is as unmeaning to me as the leaves which 
the fabled sybil scattered on the winds ; and this un- 
meaning Mass, a greater mass of absurdity than ever 
heathen ingenuity or depravity invented, is the chief 
source of edification to nine tenths of the papal world ! 
If it were merely unmeaning, without being blasphe- 
mous and wicked, I could extend to it some toleration. 
And the absurdity of the whole thing is increased to 
intensity by the fact that the pantomime is performed 
in Latin ! Pray, sir, how many of your worshipers at 
St. Patrick's understand EngHsh, not to say Latin? 
Why use a language now no longer spoken by any na- 
tion or people, which is now simply a medium of inter- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 197 

Cool insult. Hatred of change. No difference. 

course among scholars ? The answer given to this 
question by Challoner is one of the most cool insults 
that I have ever known offered to the common sense 
of the world. Here it is : 1. Because it is her ancient 
language . . . and the Church, which hates novelty, 
desires to celebrate her liturgy in the same language. 
2. For a greater uniformity in public worship ; that a 
papist, wherever he wanders, may witness the cere- 
monies of the Mass in the same language. 3. To avoid 
the changes to which all vulgar languages are exposed. 
He also tells us that it is unnecessary to understand 
what we are saying if our hearts are only sincere ! 
Sir, I see not how men who offer or receive such state- 
ments as reasons can have the faculty of understand- 
ing a reason. Because the ritual of the Mass was first 
formed in Latin — ^because Mass was first said in Latin 
at Rome when that was the vulgar tongue, the hatred 
of your Church to novelty forbids her to change the 
language of her ritual when there is not a congrega- 
tion on earth that can understand it ! And it is not 
necessary to understand the language in which we ad- 
dress ourselves to God, if we only intend to worship 
him ! And such is the excuse you make for the man 
who may be worshiping a false relic for a true one. 
If he only means to honor the true relic, it maies no 
difference ! If he mistakes the thigh of Barabbas for 
that of Barnabas, or the finger of Pilate for that of Pe- 
ter, or the hair of Jezebel for that of Mary, or the head 
of Balaam's ass for that of Paul, it is all the same, if 
he only means to worship the true relic ! and I suppose 
the difference, sir, is very little. ' 



198 kirwan's letters 

Penance. Extreme unction. Can you solve it ? 

These things may be very clear to you, and to your 
priests and people, but to me they are utterly without 
meaning, save a meaning that insults my common 
sense. 

And such is the fact as to your doctrines of penance 
and extreme unction, which I have already examined. 
I am a sinner. To obtain forgiveness, you tell me that 
I moist confess to you — ^that I must perform the pen- 
ances you enjoin — that I must secure absolution from 
you, and that, until all this is done, I can not procure 
forgiveness. But your doctrine of penance and its re- 
puted efficacy are as difficult for me to understand as 
they are contrary to the Bible. 

And so as to your extreme unction. I am in a dy- 
ing state. The sands in my glass are almost run. 
You come to my dying bed with your little cup of 
olive oil, blessed on Maunday Thursday. Dipping your 
thumb in the box, you cross and anoint my eyes, my 
nose, my tongue, my ears, my hands, my feet, and 
when the crossing and anointing is over, I am prepared 
for " the port of eternal happiness." Now, sir, after 
every effort, I can not understand how olive oil pro- 
duces those effects, if rubbed on with both your thumbs 
and with all your fingers. I can readily see how the 
blood of Christ, applied to my soul in the dying hour 
by the Holy Spirit, fits it for its departure ; but how 
olive oil, or any other oil, rubbed on by your thumb, or 
poured upon me in a deluge, can effect this, is a mys- 
tery utterly beyond my power of solving. Can you 
solve it ? 

And to whichsoever of your peculiar doctrines or 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 199 

At St. Patrick's. Holy water. Dodging. 

ceremonies I turn, I find the same unmeaningness in 
them all. 

I go into your church — St. Patrick's. I go with the 
multitude to the stone basin containing the holy water, 
and, dipping my fingers into it, I cross myself with the 
water. This water is made holy by being exorcised 
by the priest, mixed with salt, and then prayed over ; 
and I cross myself with it, that it may defend me from 
the power of the devil ! Now, sir, all this I can not 
understand. The devil is cast out of the water, then 
the water is salted, then it is consecrated, and then I 
am required to sprinkle myself with it in order to keep 
off the devil. I can readily see how salt will keep the 
water from becoming putrid, but how you get Satan 
out of the water, and how the water can keep Satan 
away from me, is beyond my comprehension. And 
where do you get this rite of holy water ? I remem- 
ber, when a boy, seeing the priest on Sunday passing 
through a densely-crowded chapel, with two boys car- 
rying a tub of holy water before him, and he sprink- 
ling it upon the people with something which I then 
thought Avas a cow's tail ; and I well remember how I 
often dodged behind some burly person, lest I should 
get a little too much of it ; and if that water drove the 
devil out of some of them, I would like to know how 
they acted when he was in them. If holy water would 
only produce the effects which you attribute to it, I 
would wish you to give many of our countrymen a 
pretty thorough sprinkhng. 

I find the same difficulty in your doctrine which 
teaches me to pray to the saints. How Paul or Peter 



200 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Poor Mary. My chart. Requisitions. 

can hear me in New York, and another in Cork, pray- 
ing to them at the same time, passes my comprehen- 
sion. I am sure poor Mary must have her hands full 
if she attends to all who supplicate her favor. I have 
no doubt that in the papal world ten pray to her where 
one prays to Grod. 

Nor can I comprehend why or for what purpose you 
withhold from me the free use of the Scriptures. They 
are a revelation from God to man — not to priests only, 
but to the race. They are the chart of the way to 
life, and all men are commanded to search them. "Why 
not permit — command all men to search them ? The 
shipping merchant furnishes his captains with charts 
of all the seas over which they are to sail, and enjoins 
a constant use of them ; and you take from me the 
chart which G-od has given me to direct me across the 
ocean of life, and to a safe anchorage beneath the shel- 
ter of the Rock of Ages. "Why is this ? 

My dear sir, Grod has given me a mind to understand 
his will equally as he has given you, and in revealing 
his will to me he has consulted the intelligence with 
which he has endowed me. He asks of me an intel- 
ligent service and worship. He requires all men to 
worship him in spirit and in truth. Your Church re- 
quires me to deny the testimony of my senses — to go 
contrary to the decisions of my reason — to believe, not 
only without, but against evidence — to believe in doc- 
trines as true which common reason pronounces ab- 
surd, and to submit to ceremonies which would seem 
solemn were they not so ludicrous and farcical. I be- 
lieve it is Thomas Aquinas who proves the duty of in- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 201 

Aquinas. No wish to be a donkey. 

feriors to submit to superiors in the Church from the 
very pertinent passage in Job, " The oxen were plow- 
ing, and the asses feeding beside them." And while I 
have no objection to your bishops and priests consider- 
ing themselves oxen, I prefer, on the whole, a religion, 
to believe and practice which does not require me to 
be turned into a donkey. 

With respect, yours, Kirwan. 

12 



202 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Withdrawal. Regret. Sustaining delusion. 



LETTER VIII. 

The Destiny of the Papacy. — Its Growth. — Its History not yet writ- 
ten. — The Reformation. — Reasons for the Extinction of Popery : 
1. Incapable of Reformation ; 2. Its Reformation impossible; 3. 
Opposed by the InteUigence of the World ; 4. By its Piety ; 5. 
The Causes which gave it Origin passing away ; 6. Its Extinction 
ordained ; 7. How it is to be done. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter I brought to a close 
the chief objections which prevent my return to your 
Church. As they bear, at least, upon my own mind, 
you and all men will say that they are insurmounta- 
ble. If I have misstated any of your doctrines— if I 
have magnified any of their absurdities, I have done it 
ignorantly ; and if I have uttered a sentence that could 
have been avoided in the discussion, and that can be 
interpreted as personally offensive or disrespectful to 
yourself, I withdraw it. I feel not ashamed of you as 
a countryman ; I respect your character, and the only 
feeling in my soul in reference to you is one of deep — ■ 
I might almost say, agonizing regret that you should 
lend your talents, character, and influence to the sus- 
taining of such a system of delusion as is popery, which 
I deem equally at war with the Bible, and with the 
common sense and best interests of men. However 
much or little value you place on this avowal, it is 
made in sincerity. In the present letter, which will 
close those addressed to you personally, I will ask your 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 203 

Growth of popery. Putting out lights. All not told. 

attention to some consider' ations bearing on the ulti- 
mate destiny of your Church. 

The growth of your Church has been Hke that of 
the mustard-seed — small in its beginning, but gradu- 
ally unfolding, until its branches overshadowed the 
world. It took centuries, and generations of men en- 
dowed with all the deceivableness of an unrighteous 
policy, to perfect its despotic unity. Corruption was 
introduced so gradually as to create no general alarm ; 
and the truth of Grod was so mixed up with the tradi- 
tions of men as to take away the power of the truth, 
and as to rivet upon the world the traditions of men as 
the commandments of God ; and the whole system was 
so adapted to the tendencies of our fallen nature as to 
gain easy access for it into barbarous and semi-civil- 
ized states. From being an ally of the state, it rose to 
the government of the state. It put out, first, the lights 
of civil, and then of religious liberty. By it kings 
reigned and princes decreed judgment ; and by the 
silent and gradual deposit of corruption and power, 
your Church rose, a vast form, and complicated of su- 
perstition, error, and tyranny, shutting out the light of 
heaven from the mind, and the hope of heaven from the 
soul, and filling the world with the gloom and terror of 
its despotism. Oh, sir, the history of your Church, from 
the seventh to the seventeenth century, is yet unwrit- 
ten. Much has been revealed, but the one half has 
not been told us ; nor will man ever know, until the 
day of final revealing, a tithe of the miseries and woes 
which it has inflicted on our race. When the pall of 
darkness which now conceals them shall be drawn 



204 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Fearful witnesses. The Reformation. Not to be arrested. 

aside, and when, in all their crimson hues, they shall be 
exposed to the gaze of a collected universe — when the 
martyrs from the '^ Alpine mountains cold," and from 
the vales of Piedmont, and from the dungeons of the 
Inquisitions — when the Huguenots of France, and 
slaughtered Protestants of the isles and the continents, 
shall rise up and testify against her, where can popes, 
prelates, and priests then find a hiding-place ? The 
rocks and mountains, disregarding their cries, will not 
fall upon them, nor hide them from the face of an an- 
gry God. 

The world bore the burden of the despotism of your 
Church until it could be borne no longer. The Refor- 
mation ensued ; and because Grod was in it, the com- 
bined efforts of popes, emperors, kings, and prelates 
failed to arrest it. All the elements of superstition, and 
of depravity, and of selfishness, and of cupidity, and of 
civil and ecclesiastical power, were moved to their deep 
foundations, and were combined with unsurpassed skill 
to prevent it, but in vain. The nations broke the 
heavy yoke which your Church had placed upon their 
necks, and indignantly cast it away. And from that 
day until this the conflict has continued between Prot- 
estantism and popery, between the law of Christian lib- 
erty and of papal thraldom, between the principles of 
an open Bible and the free access of the soul to God 
through a Mediator, and of a closed Bible and the re- 
ligion of sacraments, and ceremonies, and priestly in- 
terferences, without meaning, measure, or end. It 
must be confessed that, in this conflict, your Church 
has retained its ground with great art and skill, and 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 205 

What her destiny. Extinction. Not to be reformed. 

that, after three hundred years of hard fighting, it yet 
is in the field, and with a fearful array. But what is 
her destiny ? Is she to rise again to her former power, 
and to tread out the liberty of the world, and to send 
us all to school again to muttering monks, and to open 
hell to all who decline her authority, and to admit to 
heaven only those whose great faith or greater igno- 
rance receives all that she teaches ? Sir, I have no fear 
of this. I am most firmly persuaded that your Church 
is destined to total extinction. And permit me, in the 
briefest manner, to state to you a few of the reasons 
which sustain me in this belief. 

1. Your Church is incapable of reformation. What 
may be reformed may be preserved ; but the diseased 
body that allows no purgatives to remove its fever, and 
no stimulants to quicken its decaying organs, must die. 
And your Church is just such a body. Because infal- 
lible, it has never fallen into error in doctrine or in prac- 
tice, so that what it once believes and commands is 
always true and is always binding. Infallibility for- 
bids reformation. Here, then, is the position which it 
holds before the world — an infallible Church — its sense 
and nonsense equally true and important — and because 
infallible, incapable of reformation ! And, in my opin- 
ion, it is well it is so. This very position will hasten 
its overthrow. How soon were the waters of the sea 
made the winding-sheet of the Pharaoh that, amid the 
wonders which were wrought around him, refused to 
lessen the burdens of Jacob and to let Israel go ! Old 
Baxter was in the habit of saying, ^'What will not 
bend must be broken." 



206 kirwan's letters 

Reformation precluded. The opposition. 

2. Even if the doctrine of your Church permitted 
reformation, any reformation is impossible save that 
which ends in its extinction. I refer, of course, to a 
reformation of your system^ and not to that of individ- 
uals. How can your doctrine as to the Pope's suprem- 
acy be reformed save by its utter abandonment ? How 
reform your transubstantiation — your Purgatory — your 
penance — ^your extreme unction — ^your praying to dead 
men and women — your relic worship? No reforma- 
tion of these things is possible. How can they be re- 
formed ? If they can not be, they must be abandoned ; 
and if abandoned, where is your Church ? Gone, like 
the fabric of a vision, which leaves not a wreck behind. 
And again I say it is well that it is so ; these things 
will hasten its overthrow. 

3. The intelligence of the world is in opposition to 
your Church. The mind of man, wherever enlighten- 
ed and permitted to act freely, is opposed to it. The 
most enlightened, the most commercial nations are 
anti-papal. The literature of the world is against it. 
The genius of history is revealing its past wickedness : 
the genius of romance is holding it up to ridicule by 
its magic creations ; the genius of poetry is rehearsing 
its cruelties in undying song ; nor do I now remember 
a living apologist for popery, out of the ranks of your 
priesthood, worth naming, save Chateaubriand, whose 
eloquent work, '' Grenie du Christianisme," is much 
more of a romance than a serious apology for your sys- 
tem ; and all this while the historian, the poet, the 
novelist, the essayist, the penny-a-liner, the grave quar- 
terly, the lighter monthly, the laughing weekly, are out 
in opposition to it. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 207 

Prayer of the Church. Causes of popery are passing away. 

4. The prayers and the piety of the world are against 
it. I assert this as a rule which has its exceptions — 
exceptions within the pale of your own Church, where, 
I believe, in spite of your system, there are some of 
whom the world is not worthy. But from tens of 
thousands of hearts in every land upon which the sun 
shines, the prayer is daily ascending that popish super- 
stition may come to a perpetual end. And Grod is a 
prayer-hearing God. 

5. The causes which gave rise to your Church are 
rapidly passing away. Popery, you know, for the most 
part, rose in times of great ignorance. As the art of 
printing was unknown, the Bible was but little circu- 
lated. It required almost a lifetime to transcribe it, 
and a large fortune to purchase it. Hence your priests 
could teach almost any thing for divine truth, because 
the people had no Bible by which to test their teach- 
ing ; and having enormously multiplied, for doctrines, 
the commandments of men, it became your settled pol- 
icy, as far as possible, to suppress the free use of the 
Bible. This is all over with you ; and the Bible will 
be soon in every living language and among all people. 
And the ignorance of those ages in which the founda- 
tions of your Church were laid is passing away. The 
schoolmaster is going into all the earth ; and, with an 
instructed mind and an open Bible, the priest will not 
be long endured as a substitute for the preacher, nor 
the saying of mass for the proclamation of the glorious 
Grospel of salvation. Despotic governments, too, which 
lent the power of the state to the priest to assist him 
in riveting the chains of bondage on the people, are be- 



208 kirwan's letters 

The millstones. National intercourse. Every thing at war. 

coming more free. In many nations they have pass- 
ed, in many more they are passing away. The old 
feudal system and popery formed the upper and the 
nether millstone in the mill in which the people were 
ground down to the state requisite to suit your pur- 
poses. One of these stones— the feudal system — is 
broken. It will require all your wits to go on grinding 
with the other. 

In addition to all this, intercourse among the nations 
is rapidly increasing. By the power of steam the most 
distant people are made neighbors, and by the appli- 
cation of magnetism the thoughts of men are made to 
travel round the earth with a velocity far surpassing 
that of the sun. That stagnation of the mind, and of 
the mass, which is the true element of popery, as of 
all superstition, is broken up ; and at the prospect of 
a steam-engine whistling through Italy on a railway, 
Rome is alarmed. And thus the causes which gave 
rise to your Church, and whose continuance for so 
many ages enabled it to maintain its fearful pre-em- 
inence, are rapidly passing away. It would seem as 
if, for the last four hundred years, every thing was 
operating against her. The sacking of Constantinople, 
the discovery of the art of printing, and of the mari- 
ner's compass, and of this new world, the Reformation 
by Luther, the firmness and the weakness of princes, 
the periods of war and peace, the passing away of old 
and the rise of new dynasties, the virtues and the vices 
of popes, prelates, and priests, their learning and their 
ignorance, bloody and bloodless revolutions, the prag- 
matic sanction of Charles VIL, the revocation of the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 209 

Ordination of God. Prophecy. The mighty fallen. 

Edict of Nantz by Louis XIV., the irruptions of infi- 
delity, and the revivals of true religion, all, all have 
been directed by the hand of Grod so as to weaken the 
foundations, and as to hasten the desired period of her 
final fall. 

6. And more than all this, it is my strong convic- 
tion that God has ordained the total extinction of your 
Church. I will not detain you, sir, nor my readers, 
with any dissertations upon the prophecies bearing on 
this point ; this would be aside from my object. John, 
when rapt in vision in Patmos, informs us that Bab- 
ylon '^ shall be utterly burned with fire," and calls upon 
Grod's people to " come out of her," that they might 
not be partakers of her sins, nor receive of her plagues. 
And Paul tells us that the Lord shall consume '' that 
wicked" with the spirit of his mouth, and destroy him 
with the brightness of his rising. And by '' Babylon," 
and '* that wicked," I believe Paul and John meant the 
papal Church. It has already lost its civil power. 
Once she could dethrone kings, and absolve subjects 
from their allegiance : now, in a civil point of view, 
there is no weaker power on earth. Metternich can 
send his Austrian troops into the States of the Church 
without fearing the least injury from the successor of 
Grregory the Great ! How is the mighty fallen ! 
Ronge, in Germany, excited to opposition by the im- 
positions of the '' Holy Coat of Treves," has led out one 
hundred thousand from the yoke of your Church, and 
all that his hohness can do is to bear it. Even in the 
city of New York, the resolute Germans are flocking 
out from the care of Holy Mother, and all that you can 



210 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

The sheep rushing out. IIow to be done ? Past providences. 

do is to flourish your crook, your keys, and your cro- 
sier around the altar of St. Patrick's, without the least 
power to stop one of the wandering sheep ; and the 
more you strive to stop, the more determined are they 
to leave your fold. The temporal power of your Church 
is gone ; the spiritual is fast going after it ; and the 
time will soon he here when the pen of the historian 
will write. The Church of Rome was, but is not. 

How this is to be done is a question of some im- 
portance, and upon which I have my own opinions. 
A careful looking at past providences may cast some 
light upon the future, and inspire hope or fear, accord- 
ing to the relation we sustain to Grod and his Church. 
You know, sir, the way in which Grod treated Pharaoh 
and the Canaanites, and how he blotted out the nations 
that opposed the progress of his people. You know the 
way and manner in which he broke "up the Jewish 
Church and state for their opposition to Christ and his 
Church. You know how the Reformation progressed, 
from small beginnings, until it opened a new epoch in 
the world's history ; from what was considered a little 
ecclesiastical gladiatorship, until kingdoms were shak- 
en ; until thrones, cemented by ages, were convulsed, 
and tottered to their base ; until hostile armies met in 
deadly combat, and fattened the earth with the blood 
of the papist and the Protestant. Grod has the control 
of all agencies to accomplish his will. Much will be 
done for the extinction of your Church by education ; 
much by the general influence of learning ; much, very 
much by the circulation of the Bible ; much more by 
the simple and fervent preaching of the Gospel to the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 211 

No reasoning from the past to the future. Superstitious die out. 

masses, as did Luther ; and much by the direct agen- 
cy of Him in whose sight the nations are as a drop in 
the bucket, and who will overturn and overturn until 
He shall come whose right it is to reign. 

These, reverend sir, are, in brief, my reasons for be- 
lieving that your Church is destined to utter extinc- 
tion. No reasons can be drawn for its future contin- 
uance from its continuance until now. If your people 
had not been papists, they might have been pagans or 
infidels. The Canaanites remained a long time in the 
land to perplex the Jews. Paganism continued for 
ages in the Roman world after its conversion to Chris- 
tianity ; yet both became extinct, save as paganism has 
been perpetuated by your people. Nor can any argu- 
ment be drawn from the occasional conversions to your 
communion which are now occurring. You know that 
in ages past some Christian ministers relapsed into 
idolatry ; and that, during the French Revolution, some 
of your bishops, and many of your priests, went over to 
infidelity. You must lay no flattering unction to your 
soul from arguments like these. Your Church is op- 
posed to the truth of Grod, to the people of God, to the 
will of G-od. The shed blood of the martyrs is crying 
to heaven against it. Its extinction is certain, and 
may Q-od hasten it in his own time and way. 

With the most sincere prayers for your spiritual and 
eternal welfare, I remain, with respect, your fellow- 
countryman and fellow-sinner, 

KiRWAN. 



212 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Appeal to the people. Honest but deluded. Degraded. 



LETTER IX. 

To all, and especially to American, Roman Catholics : 

My dear Friends, — Having addressed a series of 
letters to one of your most celebrated bishops in this 
country, the Right Reverend John Hughes, of New 
York, candidly stating the reasons which induced me 
to abandon the Roman Catholic Church, and which 
prevent my return to it, I desire, before I lay aside my 
pen, perhaps never to be resumed on this subject, to 
address myself to you. And I turn from the bishop to 
you for various reasons, some of which I desire, in the 
briefest manner, to state. 

1. While entirely honest, I believe you to be a peo- 
pie deluded by your priests. They have taken from 
you the Bible ; they forbid you to reason on the subject 
of religion ; they have filled your minds with preju- 
dices against all who resist or question their authority ; 
they have imposed upon you for doctrines the com- 
mandments of men ; and they have impressed upon 
you the belief that with them is the power to admit or 
to exclude you from heaven. In stating these things, I 
say what I do know, and what you know. With me 
it is no theory, for I have felt it all. 

2. I believe you to be a people impoverished and 
degraded by your priests. The reasons for my opinion 
on this subject are stated in the preceding letters. Ig- 
norance being the parent of papal devotion, the priests 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 213 

Popery sinks the man. Prelates no reformers. Jewish high-priests. 

have shut out from you the light of knowledge. Ig- 
norance begets vice, and vice is the parent of poverty ; 
or, if ignorance begets not vice, it is the rank soil in 
v^hich superstition attains its most magnificent grow^th ; 
and which most degrades a people, vice or superstition, 
it is not worth the while to inquire. I verily believe 
it impossible to be a true papist without sinking the 
man. 

3. I believe that the papal world need look for no re- 
dress of grievances, for no true reformation, from its 
prelates or priests. The history of the world, and the 
history of the Church, and the principles of human na- 
ture, forbid us to entertain the idea. How few and far 
between the instances in which despotic kings, or rul- 
ers, of their own accord, retrenched their expenditures 
to relieve the burdens of their subjects, or yielded their 
usurped rights to increase the liberty of their people ! 
and what of civil liberty the nations possess has cost 
the people ages of contest with tyrants, and rivers of 
blood ! 

And when have high ecclesiastics ever led the way 
in salutary reformation ? Not at the advent of Jesus 
Christ. It was the high-priest that sat in Moses' seat, 
and his subordinates that nailed to the cross the Lord 
of glory. It was the commission of the high-priest to 
persecute the dissenters at Damascus from the order 
established at Jerusalem that Saul of Tarsus carried 
in his pocket when he was arrested by Heaven. The 
Reformers of the sixteenth century, whom your priests 
delight to dishonor, but yet who have given civil and 
religious liberty to the world, were hunted, as by blood- 



214 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

The people the reformers. Abandon it. Break your chains. 

hounds, by the high ecclesiastics of their day. Every 
reUgious reform of permanent utihty, and in every 
land upon which the sun shines, has been in conse- 
quence of the united action of the people. There oc- 
curs not to me now an instance to the contrary. 

It is not in human nature to surrender power once 
possessed, nor to give up a gainful traffic, nor, for the 
sake of benefiting or enriching the mass, to yield up 
privileges. Grrace leads to many sacrifices to do good 
to men, but nature holds on to the privileges of order, 
station, caste, however they may bear upon the people ; 
and if ever the people are freed from them, it must be 
by their own acts. Roman Catholics ! you have noth- 
ing to expect from your priests but the perpetuation of 
their bad dominion over your mind and conscience, and 
their vigilant and united efforts to crush every man 
and every influence that would weaken it. The prin- 
ciples of your Church forbid its reformation — a true 
reformation would be the end of it — there is no alter- 
native for you but to abandon it. 

These are the reasons, Roman Catholics, why I turn 
to you, and why I would implore you, by all that is to 
be desired in a mind free to think, in a soul free to love 
and to act — free in its access to God, without priestly 
taxes and interferences ; by all that is to be desired in 
the social and religious elevation of your children, and 
in the moral regeneration of your race, to rise, and to 
fling from around you the chains forged in the Dark 
Ages, and with which priests would bind you to their 
footstools in this age of light. 

You must remember that your position in these 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 215 

The priest's whip. Altered position. Feelings of Protestants. 

United States is very different from what is that of 
those yet Hving in the papal countries of Europe. 
Here you are free to think and to act for yourselves. 
In Ireland you might be afraid of the priest's whip, or 
of his cursing you from the altar. I have seen myself 
a priest whip a man in the street, and I have heard 
the same priest curse the same man from the altar. 
But here his whip has no terror, and his curses are 
harmless. Woe to the priest who uses his whip for ar- 
guments in America ! 

And then, as to those of you from Ireland, you are 
in a very different position as to the Protestant com- 
munity from what you were at home. Protestants 
here are your friends. You are not taxed to support a 
religion you hate. Your cow or your pig are not driv- 
en from your door to pay your tithes. There is noth- 
ing here to chafe your mind, or to irritate your feelings, 
or to give cause to your priests for fiery appeals to your 
passions. Whatever may be the feelings of wicked 
men toward you, there is not a pious Protestant in the 
land that would not do you good, and that would not 
interpose to protect you from wrong ; so that the hos- 
tile feelings toward Protestants, which had an excuse 
in Ireland, have no excuse here. If you wish to think 
for yourselves, there are thousands to defend you ; and 
if, on examination, you think as I do about popery, 
and quit the Church, you have nothing to fear from 
priestly anathemas hurled at you, or after you, from 
the altar, nor from an ignorant rabble that would per- 
secute you as an apostate. The laws and feelings of 
the country are around you like walls of adamant. 



216 KIR WAN'S LETTERS 

An old device. Priests of Brahma. Calmucks. 

There is one point, my friends, to which I would di- 
rect your special attention. From your cradle you 
have been taught to regard your priests as possessing 
peculiar spiritual powers, which you resist at your per- 
il ; and, in every way and form, they seek to impress 
you with the belief that they possess such powers, and 
that their communication with heaven is beyond that 
of ordinary mortals. Now this is an old device, and 
one that is practiced very widely for the purpose of 
awing the common and vulgar mind. Thus did the 
ancient priests of Egypt, who taught the people to wor- 
ship the sun, the cow, the cat, the snake. Thus do the 
priests of Brahma at the present day. Some of them, 
by their pretended intercourse with Heaven, have be- 
come so holy that the people consider the water in 
which they Vv^ash their feet holy, and seek to be sprin- 
kled with it with intense earnestness. The Calmucks 
believe in a priesthood, all of which is united in Lama, 
who is absorbed in deity. The old Romans had their 
priests and their oracles that were regarded as know- 
ing and declaring the mind of the gods. Their power 
over the people was immense. And when pagan Rome 
became papal, it was a point greatly desired to retain 
the power of the pagan priest over the people. It was 
attained, and it has been retained ; and the power 
claimed by your priests for the better subjecting you 
to their yoke is the power claimed by all the priests of 
heathenism and Mohammedanism, and for the very 
same purpose. It is the claim of fanatics and impos- 
tors in all climes and among all people ; and whether 
set up on the banks of the Ganges or of the Tiber ; on 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 217 

Priests no power. Gospel ministry. One object. 

the shores of the Bosphorus, or on the banks of the 
Hudson, its object is to exalt the priest that he may 
govern the people. Your priests have no more power 
with G-od than any good man in the land ; nor as 
much, unless they are equally pious. If not pious and 
sincere., they are simply impostors, who make a living 
by their traffic in your souls. And such I believe most 
of them to be. 

Once secure a just and scriptural view of the char- 
acter of a true minister of Christ, and of the great end 
of a Gospel ministry, and the whole framework of pop- 
ery vanishes. The end of the Grospel ministry is to 
hold up a crucified Christ as God's great remedy for 
the sins, and guilt, and woes of our race, and so to ex- 
pound the moral state of the sinner and the adapted- 
ness of the work of Christ to that state as to lead him 
to see that his only hope of life is in the cross, and then 
to beseech him, in Christ's stead, to 'be reconciled to 
God. This being the end of the ministry, a true min- 
ister is one who, with the love of God and the salvation 
of men filling his soul, goes out into all the ways which 
Providence opens before him, preaching every where, 
as did Peter and Paul, '^ repentance toward God, and 
faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." He has only one ob- 
ject — to lead men to the knowledge of the truth. He 
carries no wafers to convert into Christs ; he makes no 
pretensions to the power of regenerating souls by bap- 
tizing them ; he calls not upon men to confess to him, 
but to God ; he has no unmeaning masses to mutter ; 
no relics to sell ; no unmeaning rites to enjoin ; no ol- 
ive oil, nor holy salt, nor holy water to drive away de- 

K 



218 



K 1 R W A N ' S LETTERS 



True ministers of Christ. The Church. A member of it. 

mons. He goes out, wearing no sacerdotal garments 
to astonish the vulgar, with an open Bible to expound 
it, praying that the Holy Ghost may so apply its truths 
to the hearts of his hearers that they may be created 
anew in Christ Jesus unto good works. To those who 
believe he administers the rite of baptism ; and, as 
God gives him opportunity, he administers the Lord's 
Supper to the faithful, for the purpose of commemora- 
ting the death of Christ until he comes the second 
time, without sin, unto salvation. Such were the min- 
isters of Christ before the rise of popery, and such only 
are the true ministers of Christ now. If so, will you 
bear the impositions of your priests an hour longer ? 

There is one other point to which I would direct 
your special attention, because it is one upon which 
you have been greatly deceived : I mean the Church. 
Every effort has been put forth by your priests to mys- 
tify this topic, and to deceive you in reference to it. 
All who truly believe in Jesus Christ, and practice the 
precepts of his word, are reconciled to God. They are 
adopted into the family of God — ^they are the sons and 
daughters of the Lord Almighty. A connection of such 
with any branch of the visible Church does not inter* 
fere with their connection with the family of God. No 
good man is lost, and no bad man is saved, because of 
their connection with any church. As a man may be 
a true papist and be a Jesuit, or a Jansenist, or a monk 
of La Trappe, or a shorn friar, so he may be a true 
Christian, and a member both of the visible and invisi- 
ble Church, and be a Protestant or a papist, and a 
member of any of the sects into which they are both 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 219 

The last branch. No party interest. Not so Bishop Hughes. 

divided, which hold to the true atonement of Jesus 
Christ. But you will ask. Have you no preference 
for one branch of the Church above another ? I have. 
You ask again, "What branch is it ? That in which 
the most truth and the least error, the most simplicity 
and the least pompousness, exist. Of course, the very 
last branch I would select would be the papal ; and in 
the Protestant Church, the very last branch I would se- 
lect is that which is most like the papal. The true 
unity of the Church is unity in the truth, and union 
to Christ. 

Right views of the ministry of Christ, and of the 
Church of Christ, in one hour blow the whole fabric of 
popery into the air. 

In this appeal to you, Roman Catholics, I am no in- 
terested party. It would not be a cent in my pocket 
if every man of you were to abandon the Pope to-mor- 
row, nor will it be a cent out of it if every man of 
you continue to believe that your priests can turn a 
wafer into Christ, and regenerate you by baptism, 
and absolve you from your sins, and get you admis- 
sion to heaven by rubbing you with olive oil when dy- 
ing. Can Bishop Hughes or your priests say this? 
"Why, then, you ask, this solicitude about us ? On these 
accounts : I know you to be deceived, and I desire you 
to be undeceived. I know that you are led to place 
dependence on rites and ceremonies for a preparation 
for the life to come, which give no such preparation. 
I know that you are robbed of your money for services 
that only tend to degrade you, that you are deprived of 
the dearest rights of man — an open Bible, and free ac- 



220 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Fettered by the priest. Degrading homage. Heart feeling. 

cess to God for yourselves, without any saintly or priest- 
ly attorneys to plead for you. I see you hampered and 
fettered on every hand. By telling the priest every 
thing you do, you put your peace and liberty into his 
hands. You can not read the Bible without his license, 
and be a good Catholic. You can not retain your 
standing, and read any book which he prohibits, or fail 
in any duty which he enjoins. You can not bow your 
knee before Grod with a Protestant around his family 
altar without the terror of a severe penance when you 
next go to confession. I see you, freemen in a land of 
freedom, and yet the veriest slaves that tread the soil, 
because your minds and souls are in fetters. I see you, 
a noble people, yielding a degrading homage to men 
that deceive you, and sustaining, even in your poverty, 
with a princely liberality, institutions that degrade 
you. And I desire, with an irrepressible desire, to see 
you the subjects of the perfect law of liberty with which 
Christ makes his people free. These, my friends, are 
the reasons of my solicitude about you. 

However I feel toward the system of popery, or to- 
ward the priests of the system, there is but one feeling 
and one desire in my heart toward you : that feeling 
is one of affection and interest, and that desire is, that 
you may be emancipated from a system of superstition 
and spiritual despotism as degrading and grinding as 
any that Grod has ever permitted to exist 

"With respect, yours, Kir wan. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 221 

Hindoo devotee. His appearance. His reply. 



LETTER X. 

Conclusion. — The Indian Devotee. — Faith in Christ saves. — The dy- 
ing Thief. — Peter at the Feast of Pentecost. — The Plan of Salva- 
tion. — The Gospel and Papal Way of Salvation contrasted. — A Call 
upon Irish Roman Catholics. 

I STILL address myself to American Roman Catho- 
lics. But a few years since, a Christian minister in 
India, in the pursuit of the ohjects of his holy mission, 
met with a Hindoo devotee. A noonday sun was 
pouring its burning rays from a burning sky upon the 
burning sands on which the meeting took place. From 
its heat the devotee had no protection save the piece 
of cloth which hung around his loins. He wore a pair 
of sandals pierced with iron nails, which at every step 
penetrated the muscles and nerves which are so won- 
derfully collected and interwoven in the soles of the 
feet. His sandals were filled with his blood, which 
marked his every footstep. He was an object fright- 
ful to behold — ^his body blistered by the sun ; his hair, 
clotted with filth, hanging around his head ; his feet, 
swollen, bleeding, and painful, almost refusing to move. 
The missionary asked him why he wore those sandals, 
and why he subjected himself to such intense suffering. 
He replied that he had committed great sins, which 
were greatly offensive to the gods, and that, in order 
to secure the forgiveness of those sins, he wore those 
sandals, and cheerfully submitted to all his sufferings. 



222 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

The more excellent way. Preaching. Its effects. 

Filled with compassion for the deluded man, the 
minister of G-od told him that he could show him a 
way in which he could secure the forgiveness of his 
great sins without those sandals, and without subject- 
ing himself to such terrible sufferings. " Is there such 
a way, and, if so, what is it ?" exclaimed the devotee, 
with the most intense interest. " There is such a 
way," replied the missionary ; and, taking his Bible, 
he read to him and expounded the following passage : 
'' For Grod so loved the world that he gave his only-be- 
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not 
perish, but have everlasting life."-— John, iii., 16. He 
told the poor deluded man of the sins of men ; of the 
love of God in giving his Son to die for the sins of those 
who should believe on him ; of the birth, and suffer- 
ings, and death of Jesus Christ ; and he especially 
dwelt upon this one great, glorious, and scriptural idea, 
that he that believes on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be 
saved. The devotee heard with amazement. He be- 
lieved. He rejected the false religion of his fathers, 
though sanctioned by a thousand ages. He renounced 
subjection to his priests and their traditions. He flung 
from him his nailed and bloody sandals, by walking in 
which he supposed he was saving his soul by the tor- 
tures of his body. He received Christian baptism at 
the hands of the man of God who taught him the 
more excellent way, and lived and died in the faith 
and hope of the Gospel. 

In many respects your circumstances, Roman Cath- 
olics, widely differ from what were those of this Hin- 
doo devotee. You live in a land and in an age of 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 223 

The resemblance. Believing. Exhortation. 

light. You form parts of a great community, which 
is penetrated in every direction by moral and religious 
influences. And yet, in many respects, your circum- 
stances are like unto his. You are deluded by priests ; 
you believe in their ghostly power, and your soul sub- 
mits to it; you are looking to your confessions, and 
penances, and austerities for salvation; you are ex- 
cluded from the light of the Bible ; with all simplicity 
and honesty, you pray to saints and to the Virgin, and 
perform all that is laid upon you by the father confess- 
or ; and in this way, through the religion of the priest, 
and not through the religion of the Gospel, you hope to 
get to heaven. But you are deceived. Your hopes 
are honest, but they are built upon the sand. It is not 
by doing or sufferings but by believing^ that we can 
attain unto the salvation of the soul. '^ He that be- 
lieveth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved, and he 
that believe th not shall be damned." '' He that be- 
lieveth on the Son hath life." Roman Catholics, fol- 
low, then, the example of the Hindoo devotee. Grive 
up your beads and your Agnus Dei, your penances and 
ritual observances, your crosses, your confessions to 
men, and your holy water, and go to your Bibles, and 
to the Savior of the Bible. What all your rites and 
observances can never accomplish, simple faith in Je- 
sus Christ accomplishes, and in the moment faith fixes 
itself upon a crucified Christ. 

That you may see this clearly, permit me to state to 
you another incident. When our Lord was put to 
death, the wicked Jews, the more deeply to degrade him, 
caused him to be crucified between two thieves. One 



224 KIRWAN-S LETTERS 

The thief. How saved. Power of faith. 

of these saw, in the convulsions of nature around him, 
the evidences of the divinity of Him who was hanging 
by his side on the cross ; and while his companion in 
wickedness derided and blasphemed, he cried out from 
the depths of a convicted and believing soul unto Jesus, 
" Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy king- 
dom." The following is the reply of the Savior, " To- 
day shalt thou be with me in Paradise." Here, you 
see, my friends, are no penances, no prayers to saints, 
no holy water, no olive oil blessed on Maunday Thurs- 
day, no Purgatory ; it is simply faith in Jesus Christ, 
then death, and then Paradise, which is only another 
name for heaven. What was it that opened heaven to 
this dying thief, and gave him admission to its happy 
mansions, as one of the redeemed of the Loyd ? It 
was simply faith in Jesus Christ. " He that beheveth 
in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be saved." And the 
faith which opened heaven to the dying thief will open 
it to you. Faith is the key which opens heaven to 
your souls, and not baptism, nor the Eucharist, nor 
penance, nor extreme unction. Grive up, then, your 
crosses, and your pictures, and your dependence upon 
saints and sacraments, and go to Jesus Christ for your- 
selves : with true hearts say, " Lord, I believe ; help 
thou mine unbelief," and life, eternal life is yours. 

That you may see this clearly, permit me to state 
yet another incident. The Apostle Peter never said a 
mass in his life ; he never changed a wafer into the 
body and blood of Christ ; he never sent a poor sinner 
to pray to a saint or virgin ; he never went into a lit- 
tle box, or a dark room, to hear confession. He was a 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 225 

Peter as a preacher. Its effect. His directions. 

simple, warm-hearted preacher, and in his day labored 
to impress upon the minds of men these two truths, 
that Jesus Christ was the promised Messiah, and that 
all who believed in him would be saved. Now we 
learn from the second chapter of the Acts of the Apos- 
tles that Peter preached to the multitudes assembled 
at Jerusalem to keep the feast of Pentecost, with great 
power. He mightily convinced them from the Scrip- 
tures that Grod had made the Jesus whom they cruci- 
fied both Lord and Christ. Convicted of their deep 
sinfulness by his powerful preaching and by the Holy 
Spirit, multitudes crowd around him, asking, '' What 
shall we do to be saved ?" What does he say in re- 
ply ? Does he tell them to go to confession, or to do 
penance, or to fast on Lent or on Fridays ? Does he 
send them to the saints to ask their intercession? 
Nothing like this. What, then, does he say ? '' Re- 
pent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of 
Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and ye shall re- 
ceive the gift of the Holy G-host." They obeyed — 
that is, they forsook their sins ; they believed in Jesus 
Christ ; they were baptized in his name ; and on that 
occasion three thousand souls were added to the 
Church. 

My dear Roman Catholic friends, I once suffered 
just as you now do because of my utter ignorance as 
to the way of forgiveness with Grod. I was taught all 
about confession, and confirmation, and penance, and 
saints' days, and fasting, and holy water, and saying 
^' Hail Mary." I looked upon the priest as the door- 
keeper of heaven, without whose permission there was 

K2 



226 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

Personal reminiscence. The great question. Its answer. 

no admittance ; but I knew nothing about the Bible, 
and was taught nothing about the work of Christ for 
the sinner, nor about the work of the Spirit in him. 
In great mercy, and in the way stated in my letters to 
Bishop Hughes, I became a reader of the Bible ; and, 
to my utter amazement, I found there taught, with per- 
fect plainness, the way of salvation, which the priest 
had wrapped up in mystery inextricable. The way- 
faring man, though a fool, may understand the way in 
which a soul may be saved as taught in the Bible- — it 
is beyond the comprehension of G-abriel as taught by 
your priests. Do any of you ask, as did the heathen 
jailer of Philippi, w^hen terrified by the effects of the 
crashing earthquake, '' "What shall I do to be saved ?" 
Permit me, as a friend who has no object in view but 
your temporal and eternal good, to place before you 
what I regard as the scriptural answer to this moment- 
ous question : 

1. You must feel that you are a sinner, exceeding- 
ly, in the sight of Grod. The Bible teaches us that 
we are sinners by nature and by practice. It is one 
thing to believe this, it is another to feel it. You 
must feel it. No man ever sends for a physician until 
he feels that he is sick. The people to whom Peter 
preg,ched never asked what they should do to be saved 
until ^'they were pricked in their heart." 

2. You must feel and know that there is no way of 
securing the pardon of your sins but through the re- 
demption there is in Christ Jesus. We are expressly 
taught, ''there is no other name under heaven given 
among men whereby we must be saved." — Acts, iv., 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 227 

Strong-hold. Sum of all instruction. Direct to heaven. 

12. This is an idea that your mind must grasp with 
all its powers, and which you are in danger of letting 
slip, because of the way and manner in which you 
have been instructed as to the efficacy of sacraments, 
and priestly manipulations, and ritual observances. 

3. You must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. This 
is the end and the sum of all the instructions of the 
New Testament to sinners. This is the commandment 
of Grod, that ye believe in the name of his Son. Faith 
brings you into a living union with Christ, for whose 
sake alone you are accepted and saved. 

Here, then, we have the true answer to the ques- 
tion, ^' What shall I do to be saved ?" You must feel 
that you are a sinner, and you must feel that none but 
Christ can save you ; and in heart and soul you must 
cordially receive him, as made unto you of God wis- 
dom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and re- 
demption. A sense of sin will induce you to seek for 
its remedy. Christ crucified, bearing the sins of his 
people in his own body on the tree, is God's remedy 
for sin ; and believing in Christ is the application of 
the- remedy ; and believing in Christ, should you die 
the very next hour, your soul would go, cleansed by 
his atoning blood, to join the general assembly and 
church of the first-born in heaven. 

Need I stop, ere I close this letter, to place in con- 
trast before you the Gospel plan of salvation with the 
plan of your priests ? Must not the contrast strike 
yourselves as you read and ponder ? You ask what 
you must do to be saved. The priest tells you to 
confess, to do penance, to pray to the saints, to keep 



228 KIR WAN's LETTERS 

The contrast. Fearful process. Can any hesitate? 

Lent, to eat no meat on stated days, to go to mass, to 
torture your body ; and when all this is done, when 
you come to die, you must he anointed with olive oil 
blessed on Maunday Thursday. Nor will this do. You 
have then to go to Purgatory, to atone for your venial 
sins by your own suffering, unless you are bought out 
by the alms and suffrages of the faithful in paying for 
masses for your deliverance ! "What a long, and com- 
plicated, and expensive process ! And, after all, there 
is no telling the time when the suffrages of the faith- 
ful, or the masses of the priests, will secure your de- 
liverance from purgatorial fires ! What a dark and 
fearful process ! 

In the face of all this, the Grospel declares to you 
that the blood of Christ cleanses from all sin, and that 
whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be 
saved. It offers you a free, a full, a perfect salvation, 
and without any priestly interferences, and ^^ without 
money and without price." 

Can you hesitate a moment between the plan of the 
priest and the plan of the G-ospel ? The one debases 
you as a man, makes you the slave of the priest, and 
cheats you of heaven ; the other addresses you as a 
moral and intellectual being, sends you to the cross for 
yourself, gives you free access to God, and secures for 
you eternal life. 

Irish Roman Catholics ! would that I could induce 
you to look at this great subject in the light of the Bi- 
ble. It is intimately connected with your temporal 
and eternal interests, and with the interests of unborn 
generations. When a boy. I often heard, and never 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 229 

Speech of Emmet. Destroyed. Why priests destroy Bibles. 

but with burning indignation, of the magistrate, the 
tool of British power, entering the houses of the Irish 
suspected of disaffection, and tearing from its frame 
the speech of Emmet, made in reply to the question 
of the bloodthirsty judge who tried him, '' "What he 
had to say why the sentence of death should not be 
passed against him according to law ?" The British 
ministry felt that that speech fostered the spirit of na- 
tionality in the Irish bosom, and made every man who 
read it to resolve, at whatever expense, to be free ; and 
they destroyed every copy of it that could be found, and 
forbade its publication. As my kindred were among 
the disaffected ones, I felt it to the quick. And what, 
think you, must be my feelings now, in the vigor of my 
manhood, when I see, in this free land, the descend- 
ants of those who fought at Vinegar Hill and at Tara 
permitting individuals calling themselves the priests 
of the religion of G-od to enter their houses and take 
away their Bibles, and to forbid them, by the terrors 
of eternity, to think for themselves on the most impor- 
tant of all subjects connected with their being ! It is 
the very feeling that prompted the British spies to de- 
stroy the speech of Emmet that now prompts your 
priests to destroy your Bibles. The one fostered the 
spirit of civil, the other of religious freedom. The 
British ministry wished to suppress the breathing of 
your fathers after their civil rights ; your priests wish 
to suppress the breathings of you, their children, aft- 
er religious rights. And will you, the sons of noble 
sires, submit, in a land of freedom, to wear the galling 
chains of spiritual bondage ? "Will you submit to have 



230 KIR WAN's LETTERS. 

Wear no chains. Jeremiah's sorrow. Letters ended. 

these chains clanking around you to the grave, and, 
when you die, to have them bound upon your children ; 
and for no earthly purpose but to sustain a priesthood 
and a hierarchy for v^hose utter overthrow the civil 
and religious interests of the nations, and the temporal 
and eternal interests of our race, are calling aloud to 
heaven ? 

If so, with a slight variation, mine will be the lan- 
guage of the pious Jeremiah, who had the civil and 
the religious welfare of his people equally at heart : 
that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain 
of tears, that I might weep day and night for the blind- 
ness and folly of my people. 

My letters are ended. I commit them to you, Ro- 
man Catholics, and to the blessing of Almighty Grod. 
With great respect, yours, Kirwan. 



BISHOP HUGHES CONFUTED. 



THIRD SERIES. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



When I ended my first series of letters to Bishop 
Hughes, I hoped and thought that my part in the Ro. 
mish controversy was also ended. Appeals, however, 
were made to me, that I could not resist, for a new se. 
ries, in the manner and spirit of the first. I yielded^ 
and hence the second series. Pledging myself not to 
reply to any attacks made upon my letters save by 
him to whom they were addressed, and feeling, for 
reasons stated, that he would not reply, I again sup- 
posed my work ended ; but, contrary to my expecta- 
tions, the bishop twice attempted a reply, and with 
what spirit and success I need not inform the public. 
His first letters are as feeble as could be desired ; his 
second are in the very worst spirit even of popery, 
whose very best spirit has but little to recommend it. 
The feebleness of the first letters to '' Dear Reader," 
and the low personalities, not to say vulgarities, of 
those addressed to " Kirwan," reveal the true charac- 
ter of the author. They might be published by Prot- 
estants in a separate volume, which might be truly 
entitled, '' Bishop Hughes Unmasked." They show 
how little of the gentleman is requisite to make a pop- 
ish bishop. Those letters are reviewed in the follow- 
ing pages. 

My objections to the system of popery are stated in 



234 INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 

my first and second series. They have not been an- 
swered, nor will they soon be. . The bishop's reasons 
for adherence to the Catholic Church are reviewed and 
confuted in the present series. The present series 
pulls up the upas-tree by the roots ; the former series 
lopped off its baleful branches ; together, they lay down 
the rootless, branchless trunk upon the earth to rot. 

The arguments of these letters are not, of course, new. 
All that I have attempted to do is to strip the contro- 
versy of its learned heaviness ; by recasting and sim- 
plifying, to bring it down to the comprehension of the 
common mind, and thus to prepare a manual on the 
subject adapted to universal circulation. Such a man- 
ual, unless I mistake, was greatly needed by papists 
and Protestants. 

I commit these letters to the kind care of God. May 
his Spirit accompany their circulation, and render them 
instrumental in ^'lifting up from the world one of its 
heaviest curses." Kirwan. 

New York, September, 1848. 



REPLY 

TO THK 

RIGHT REV. JOHN HUGHES, 

BISHOP OF NEW YORK. 



LETTER I. 

Introduction. — Free Discussion important. — Bishop Hughes com- 
mencing answering before reading Kirwan. — Excuse for the Charge 
of Insincerity. — Other Accounts settled. — Controversy on Roman- 
ism among the People. — Object of these Letters. 

Pleasure. Good omen. Why no reply. 

My dear Sir, — Contrary to all my expectations, 
and in the face of the excuses which I made for your 
silence, you have resolved at length to notice the " Let- 
ters" which I have addressed to you. The fact gives 
me unfeigned pleasure. It is hailed by all those in- 
terested in the development of truth, and in the expo- 
sure of error and imposture, as an omen of good. Had 
you been silent on the subject of those letters, so would 
I have been. They were assailed by some of your 
papers and priests throughout the country in a manner 
at once low and rude, but I made no reply. I was 
pledged to suffer the assaults of such assailants to pass 
unnoticed. You, sir, well know, that by multitudes 
who wear the garments of religion there are no. mani- 
festations of its grace ; that many, in religious contro- 



236 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Priestly arguments. Disappointed. Free discussion. 

versy, esteem vulgar weapons the most effectual ; and 
that many treat an opponent whose arguments they 
can not refute as did the Jews the Savior in the pal- 
ace of the high-priest, who " spit in his face, and buf- 
feted him, and smote him with the palms of their 
hands." In arguments like these, your priests, espe- 
cially those imported from Ireland, are well versed ; 
they are strong in abuse. Nor would it be any serious 
disadvantage to the cause of Protestantism if such ar- 
guments were confined to them. Separating yourself 
from the priests over whom you flourish your crook as 
chief shepherd, I stated in one of my letters that, 
should you reply, you '' would reply as a scholar and 
a gentleman." In the same letter I also stated to you 
that, if you could secure time enough from your varied 
occupations to reply to some of my objections which 
forbid my return to your Church, "there was one, at 
least, that would read your reply with great pleasure ;" 
and while disappointed at the want of scholar-like and 
gentlemanly bearing of your letters — at their weak- 
ness, evasiveness, and vulgarity — I have yet hailed 
them and read them with pleasure. 

The history of the world and of the progress of truth 
clearly prove the exceeding importance oifree discus- 
sion. From such discussion, conducted in a right spir- 
it, nothing can suffer but error and imposture. This 
Protestantism courts, and popery condemns, where the 
power is in her hands. If you and I, sir, lived in Aus- 
tria, Spain, Sicily, or in the States of the Church, your 
reply to my letters might come, not in the Freeman's 
Journal, but in the way of a warrant through the civil 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 237 

Discussion no heresy. Two attempts. 

magistrate for my imprisonment or banishment as a 
heretic. But here we can have free discussion to the 
full ; and however you or your people may feel on the 
subject, I am persuaded that Protestants are resolved 
to use their privilege. And could your people think, 
and read, and believe, and act for themselves, without 
any of the terrors or trammels which your system casts 
around them, I feel persuaded that two generations 
would reduce the spiritual power of the Pope, your 
master, to a yet lower point than that to which his 
temporal power has fallen. Hence I hail your letters 
as an advance toward free discussion, which has ever 
been the desire of Protestants, because of its tendency 
to the development of truth. 

Permit me, in the briefest manner, and before I pro- 
ceed to other statements, to allude to a few things in 
your introductory letter. Some of them, to me, and to 
many of your readers, appear singular enough. 

You begin by saying that you have '^ seen a certain 
work announced and much lauded in the papers, en- 
titled ' Kirwan's Letters to Bishop Hughes.' I have 
not read these letters^ though I have twice attempted 
to do so,^^ And yet, in the subsequent paragraphs of 
this letter, you seem to know that Kirwan has treated 
you with personal respect ; that he imputes to you a 
want of sincerity in the profession of the Catholic faith ; 
that his letters have attracted attention '' by a spright- 
liness of style in assailing the doctrines of the Catholic 
Church, which renders them a pleasing contrast to the 
filthy volumes that have been written on the same 
side and on the same subject ;" you seem to know " the 



238 K I R \V A N ' S REPLY 

Bad dilemma. Small capital. Complaint. 

great topics which Kirwan has discussed," and that 
" he has pubhshed reasons for having left the Cathohc 
Church, and for refusing to return." And for these 
letters, which you so well understand without having 
ever read them, you resolve to put forth an antidote. 
Now, sir, you either read Kirwan's letters, or you did 
not read them. If you read them, why deny it ? if 
you did not read them, how came you by such an ac- 
curate knowledge of their contents and of their spirit ? 
and has the world ever heard or read of a man seriously 
undertaking to reply to a book which he has not read ? 
For your own sake, sir, I wish all your assumed care- 
lessness here had an air of more truthfulness, for there 
is not a man in or out of your Church who reads your 
letter who will not say that you either read Kirwan's 
letters, or that you had them read to you. And there 
was no need of exposing yourself to such an imputa- 
tion for the unworthy purpose of expressing your con- 
tempt. I disclaim every thing personally offensive tc 
yourself when I say that, as to truthfulness, papa] 
priests have but little capital on which to trade, and 
that they should be very sparing of what they have. 
They are already trembling on the verge of bankrupt- 
cy. "Where your sect is concerned, there are many 
who would not believe them on oath, knowing your 
doctrine of dispensation. 

You also complain that I do you great injustice by 
imputing to you a want of sincerity in your profession 
of belief in the Catholic faith. I felt when I made it, 
and now feel, that the imputation is a serious one ; 
and yet I knew not how to withhold it, nor do I know 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 239 

Allowances. Not called for. Way of reasoning. 

now how to withdraw it. I can make vast allowances 
for ignorance, but you are not an ignorant man. So 
I can make great allowance for the prejudices of early 
training, and for the influences of a narrow and bigot- 
ed education, when so conducted as to fill the mind, 
not with knowledge, but with error and superstition. 
But thus, unless I am misinformed, you have not been 
trained or educated. I can also make allowance for 
well-educated and well-disciplined minds that have al- 
ways been excluded from contact wdth minds holding 
opposite sentiments, and that are unaccustomed to hear 
questioned the truth of their opinions ; but this is not 
your case. You are no stranger to polite society — to 
the company of educated men. You well know that 
the doctrines peculiar to your Church are rejected as 
not only unscriptural, but as unreasonable and as ab- 
surd, by the great mass of the educated mind of our 
world ; and how to account for your professed belief in 
them I knew not, and now know not. The thing came 
up before my mind in this wise : Does Bishop Hughes 
believe that a mass mumbled over for half a dollar 
will avail in getting a soul out of Purgatory ? Does 
he believe that a little wafer made of flour is convert- 
ed into the real body and blood of Christ by his conse- 
cration of it? Does he believe that he can send a 
man to heaven by rubbing him with a little olive oil 
when dying ? If he beUeves in these things, he is a 
dunce ; but he is not a dunce ; therefore he does not 
believe them. This, sir, I frankly tell you, was the 
train of thought which led me to the conclusion of 
which you co^^plain as an injurious imputation. There 



240 K I R W A N ' S REPLY 

A preference. Generous instinct. Hits. 

was no alternative for me but to question your sense 
or your sincerity, and I preferred the latter, as, on the 
whole, most pleasing to yourself I do not know that 
there is a living man who would not prefer to be writ- 
ten a knave rather than a fool. The first simply im- 
plies a sinful misdirection of his sense, and may be 
the imputation of selfishness or malice ; the other is a 
denial that he has any sense ; so that the imputation, 
instead of ''betraying the evil effects of my Presbyte- 
rian training," exhibits rather '' the generous instincts 
of my Irish nature" in making for you the best apol- 
ogy that the case would admit. I hope this explana- 
tion will satisfy you. I have no doubt it will. 

I think, sir, your friends will regret the whole tone 
of your introductory letter, considering the courtesy 
which I observed toward you. It exhibits a spirit un- 
worthy of a bishop. You could continue in silence 
without any one having a right to impugn your mo- 
tives; but when you came forward to reply, you 
should have exhibited less irritation. I am sorry that 
my letters vexed, if they failed to convert you. I 
hoped you would take them as a good-natured Irish- 
man, as I supposed you were. Your conjecture and 
mistake as to my name might have been omitted. 
Your regrets over my Irish birth are ludicrous. Your 
saying that you would rather I had been any body 
else's countryman than yours is probably among the 
truest things you have said. You know not why I di- 
rected my letters to you. This is owing to the fact 
that you commenced ansivering before reading them. 
You felt, perhaps, that reading them might bias your 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 241 

Of no importance. Truth the great object. Commotion. 

mind. You assert, as far as you know, that the pub- 
he never asked for my reasons for leaving your Church. 
Had I recently gone to confession to you, you might 
think differently. You say it is a matter of the least 
importance to Catholics w^hether I return or not. It 
is very likely that the sun would rise and set without 
either of us ; it certainly did so before we were born, 
and may possibly continue to do so after we are dead. 
It is not wise, even for a bishop, to indulge the conceit 
that the sun rises in his mouth and sets at his feet. 
But all this, sir, is aside from the great object of my 
letters ; it is the argumentiim ad invidiam^ and is 
unworthy of you and of me. If my object in my let- 
ters to you, or your object in the letters of which you 
make mine the occasion, or the object of these letters 
in reply to yours, is obtained, we must omit personal- 
ities, and seek solely and only the truth. The truth 
only is worthy the pursuit of high-minded and Chris- 
tian men. 

You say, and truly, that the public mind is awake 
to the relative positions of the Catholic and Protestant 
Churches. This is emphatically so. Controversies 
which hitherto have been confined to universities and 
ecclesiastics are now down among the people. Even 
the Italian mind, which the evil influences of your 
Church have almost extinguished, is questioning the 
truth of your dogmas and forms, and is breathing aft- 
er emancipation from them. Catholic Grermany is in 
agitation, and the aid of princes is invoked to prevent 
the people from becoming Protestant. The entire 
Catholic world is in commotion, seeking to break the 

L 



242 kirwan's reply 

Counter currents. A mistake. Reasons for it. 

fetters with which your popes and priests have bound 
it for ages. In this land of our adoption, all minds are 
using the privilege of thinking freely secured to them ; 
and where there is one Protestant who passes over to 
your Church, there are fifty papists who become Prot- 
estants. Your people begin to feel that they have 
permitted their mercenary priests to think for them 
long enough ; they now commence thinking for them- 
selves ; and I am pleased to inform you that even Kir- 
wan's Letters, bad as they are in your estimation, 
have been eagerly sought for by many of them, and 
have been blessed to the hopeful conversion of not a 
few. You say the Catholic religion is now looked 
upon with less disfavor than formerly. I am per- 
suaded, sir, that you mistake upon this subject, and 
that you will be convinced of that mistake ere long. 
Controversy has assumed a kinder tone, and efforts are 
put forth in a more quiet and Christian way than for- 
merly, but the mind of the world and its piety were 
never more intently engaged for the overthrow of pop- 
ery than at the present hour. You, sir, are regarded 
as at the head of a political party — ^you are regarded 
as carrying the vote of the papal Irish in your pocket. 
Papists, even here^ are regarded as so wedded to the 
Pope as to be willing to cast their vote for the party 
that praises him loudest. These, sir, are the reasons 
why you misread the attentions which are paid to 
yourself, and the eulogies which are pronounced on the 
Pope. Some of the very men who flatter you in pub- 
liCj and who applaud the Pope in the Tabernacle, con- 
temn you in their hearts, and pray at their family al- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 243 

Prayer. Your own course. Object stated. 

tars that popish superstition may come to a perpetual 
end. And you well know it all. 

Yet, sir, there is an excitement on the public mind 
which will secure a reading for what you or I may 
say, kindly and intelligently, as to popery or Protest- 
antism. I have stated my objections to your Church. 
It is a matter of public regret that you have not re- 
solved to meet and obviate them. You have marked 
out, however, your own course. You have attempted 
to show the reasons why no Catholic should forsake 
his Church, and why all Protestants should seek her 
communion as soon as possible. It will be my pleas- 
ure to follow you step by step, and to show the utter 
truthlessness of every argument you have adduced to 
show that yours is the one holy, catholic, and apostol- 
ical Church, out of whose communion there is no sal- 
vation. This no man has ever yet succeeded in doing. 
Can you hope to be successful where others, more 
learned, more acute, and less burdened with duties, 
have failed ? 

My objections to your Church are before the world. 
They stand there, abused, but unanswered. This is 
one point gained. It will be gaining another if I can 
show the baselessness of every argument you use to 
bind your people to it, and to induce others to enter it. 
To do this will be my object in the following letters. 
Yours, KiRWAN. 



244 KIR WAN's REPLY 



Stand-point. Frailty. Weak distillation. 



LETTER II. 

Bishop Hughes's Letters characterized. — Coolness of their State- 
ments. — Their Argument one enforcing Despotism. — The Principle 
that the Bible has no Authority but what the Church gives it, and 
that it must be understood as the Church interprets it, examined. 

My dear Sir, — I now proceed to the examination 
of the letters which you have addressed to ^' Dear 
Reader," and of which mine to you have been the oc- 
casion. I have taken the stand-point outside your 
Church which you requested your " Reader" to take, 
and there I have considered and inwardly digested 
them. My views in reference to them I will now 
frankly and candidly give to you and to the public; 
and if a word or sentiment shall escape me not essen- 
tial to my main object, that will give you pain, I beg 
you to charge it to the account of that frailty of our 
common natures, from which, alas ! neither Peter nor 
his successors were nor are exempt. 

These letters give the old statement about the papal 
being the only true Church, and in the old way — a 
statement which has been better made very many 
times. There is an utter absence from it of freshness ; 
it is a mere distillation from other minds, wonderfully 
weakened in the process. Out of the old beaten track 
of Christ appointing apostles, and making Peter their 
Pope — of giving to them, and especially to him, the 
keys of the kingdom, you seem unable to take a step ; 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 245 

Falling in the scale. Coolness. Our age, 

and you present the argument, if it can be so called, 
in the weakest and dullest form that I have yet seen 
it. How to account for this — whether on the ground 
of an over-estimate of your talents, or that you are 
reasoning against your own internal convictions — I 
know not. Although comparatively unknown, and 
with but little general reputation at stake, I would not 
be the author of them for your crook, keys, and mitre. 
They have let you down many degrees in the intellect- 
ual scale. 

A remarkable feature of these letters is the coolness 
and confidence with which their statements are made. 
These statements have been logically and theologically 
refuted very many times, and yet you reproduce them 
with as much composure as if they were the utterance 
of the divine Spirit — as if they were not the merest, 
and some of them the most foolish assumptions. The 
argument of assertion is one in which your Church is 
very powerful, because, with a certain order of mind, 
it is so potent. "With many, it is sufficient to know 
that the Pope, the bishop, or the priest says so ; and it 
is difficult to conjecture what those may not say who 
affirm that they can change a little wafer made of 
flour into the real body and blood of Christ. But you, 
sir, should know that you live not in the age of Thomas 
Aquinas, and that you are read by increasing multi- 
tudes in your own Church, with whom assertion is 
simply assertion. In our day the reason of a child 
holds against the assertion of a priest. 

The argument of these letters is one maintaining 
and enforcing ecclesiastical despotism. Christ ap- 



246 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Heathen and publicans. Peter. Coroner's verdict. 

pointed apostles; over the twelve he placed Peter as 
Pope ; to these and their successors he gave the gov- 
ernment of the Church in all ages and countries, and 
the power of the keys to admit or to exclude, to bind 
or to loose, as they might deem meet ; and all who 
submit not to this external arrangement, which you 
call '' the body of the Church," must be both to Grod 
and to the Church as heathen and publicans. If this 
argument is true, then there is not a man on earth who 
can be saved, however he may submit to the yoke of 
Christ, unless, in addition, he puts on the yoke of the 
Pope. And yet the G-ospel is called a " law of liber- 
ty ;" and the generous and warm-hearted Peter, who, 
although, according to your showing, the first Pope, 
yet wore no shackles, declares, ^' Of a truth I perceive 
that Grod is no respecter of persons, but in every nation 
he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is 
accepted of him." Sir, the monstrous conclusion to 
which it leads proves your argument to be a monstrous 
one ; and that argument is put forth at a time when 
the divine right of kings and priests to enslave the na- 
tions, civilly and spiritually, is passing away like the 
foam upon the waters before the indignant scorn of the 
world ! The fate of the doctrine of divine right to hold 
in bondage the bodies and souls of men, as held by 
kings and papal priests, reached this country about the 
commencement of last Lent, when your letters died. 
I have sometimes thought that a coroner's jury, em- 
panneled to investigate the cause of the death of your 
letters, would render the following verdict : ^' Died be- 
cause of the gracious visitation of Almighty Grod upon 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 247 

Stones in a pile. The Bible authority. First topic. 

the doctrine of divine right, as held by kings, and popes, 
and bishops, and other inferior clergy, which has re- 
cently taken place in Europe.""^ 

But I pass from the general impressions made by 
the perusal of your letters to the consideration of their 
statements. You will remember that my work is not 
to prove any thing save the utter truthlessness of your 
positions. Your numbered paragraphs are like stones 
in a pile, in contact, but without any logical arrange- 
ment or connection. I will cull from them your main 
principles, and will seek to show you that they are the 
merest papal assumptions. In doing this, I will not 
confine myself to your arrangement, nor yet to your 
language or method of argumentation. I will even 
give to your principles the advantage of the better 
statement made of them by standard papal authors, as 
I truly believe that nothing is finally lost by fairness. 

1. You assert that the Bible has no authority^ save 
ivhat your Church gives it^ and that it must be un- 
derstood and received as your Church interprets it ; 
and you flout private interpretation as the root of all 
heresy and of all evil. Although this is not among 
your first postulates, I select it as the first for exami- 
nation, because of its fundamental importance. If I 
have no right to read or interpret the Bible, or to de- 
duce from a single passage of it a meaning differing 
from that which your Church puts upon it, then con- 
troversy is ended. I am shut up either to return to 

* Here reference is made to the Revolutions in Europe in 1848, 
among which was the putting up of the Roman Republic and the 
flight of the Pope, 



248 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Neither. Proof sought. How is this ? 

holy mother, or — to go to hell. Now, sir, as by the 
grace of God I intend to do neither the one nor the 
other, I will show you that the principle above asserted 
is a false assumption. To be sure it is not yours, nor 
Milner's, nor Hay's merely ; it is asserted by the Coun- 
cil of Trent, and all are cursed who refuse to receive 
it. But you know by this time how much I care for 
your cures or your curses. 

The first question I wish to ask is, "Where is the au- 
thority you claim for your Church given her ? Upon 
this point I must have proof beyond question. Do you 
assert the need of an infallible interpreter of the will 
of G-od ? Such a one would be convenient, but where 
is such need asserted? where is such an interpreter 
appointed ? If you point me to a passage of Scripture, 
you admit my right of private interpretation, for I must 
exercise my judgment to decide whether it is or is not 
to the point. If you tell me that uniform tradition as- 
serts the possession of this authority by the Church, 
how do I know that your tradition is true? Your 
Church has corrupted the written Word ; hence I may 
infer that, if there is any such thing as unwritten tra- 
dition, she has corrupted that also. 

The Scriptures, you say (paragraph No. 10), owe to 
your Church their character for authenticity and in- 
spiration. How is this ? The Old Testament was 
completed, and was in use hundreds of years before the 
coming of Christ. The evangelists and apostles who 
wrote the New Testament were inspired so to do by 
the Holy Ghost. These things are capable of the full- 
est proof; nor would their proof be weakened a hair if 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 249 

Proof without the Church. The fabric totters. Truth connected, 

the \vhole papal Church were swallowed up with the 
company of " Core." Why is the Bible, more than 
any other ancient book, indebted to your Church for 
its character ? Do we not prove the apocryphal books 
uninspired which your Church places in the canon ? 
and, with equal facility, could we not prove the Epis- 
tles of Paul to be inspired if your Church had taught 
otherwise ? Do we not, with the utmost facility, show 
all your corruptions of Christianity and of the Scrip- 
tures, and separate the false from the true as easily as 
does the husbandman the chaff from the wheat ? 

The Scriptures, as we possess them, existed before 
the rise of your Church, before a general council ever 
commenced, before a declaration was ever made by a 
council as to the canon of Scripture. Any such decla- 
ration must be founded on antecedent evidence ; and 
unless such evidence existed previous to the declaration 
of it, the declaration itself is a falsehood. Let it, then, 
be granted that we have no evidence of the truth of 
Scripture save what the Church of Rome gives us, and 
the whole fabric of Christianity totters to its base. 
Are you prepared for this result ? or would you rather 
sustain popery than Christianity ? 

Truth is the great object proposed by God to our be- 
lief. Religious differs from other truth only in its su- 
perior importance. All truths in the universe are con- 
nected together, and make a harmonious whole ; they 
strengthen and fortify each other. And as God pro- 
poses truth to our belief, he has endowed us with minds 
capable of examining the claims of all things soliciting 
our belief, and has surrounded us with motives ever 

L2 



250 K I R W A N ' S REPLY 

How formed. Galileo. Who is Holy Mother? 

impelling us to seek and to love the truth. We have, 
in the works of God, the evidences of his eternal power 
and G-odhead ; we have, in his Word, the more full rev- 
elation of his will ; and he has so formed us that we 
can not believe without proof, and that we can not re- 
ject with ; at least, I know of no way of doing other- 
wise save hy turning papist. Now, w^hy should the 
Bible be exempted from the general law which rules 
my acceptance of all truth ? While permitted to think 
for myself on all other subjects, why should I be for- 
bidden to investigate the Scriptures for myself? why 
bound up to believe them only as your Church inter- 
prets them? Sir, there must be some priestly device 
at the bottom of all this. As reasonably might your 
Church forbid me to believe any thing in astronomy, 
or in physical or moral philosophy, contrary to her 
teaching, as forbid me to receive the Bible save in the 
sense which she gives it ; and you remember she sent 
G-alileo to prison for teaching that the earth moves 
around the sun. 

I must believe the Scriptures only in the sense of 
your Church' — "Holy Mother!" But who is she? 
where is her residence ? You define her, in a contro- 
versy with a late distinguished divine, to be " the visi- 
ble society of Christians, composed of the people who 
are taught and the pastors who teach, by virtue of a 
certain divine commission recorded in the 28th of 
Matthew, addressed to the apostles and their legiti- 
mate successors until the end of the world ;" so that 
the people and their pastors constitute " Holy Mother 
Church;" and "holy mother" is the rule of faith; so 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 251 

The old lady. Holy fathers and holy mothers. 

that " holy mother" is the rule of " holy mother ;" that 
isj the venerable and fretful old lady wills as she wish- 
es, and does as she wills ! Has not this been very 
much so ? 

But the people and their pastors form the Church, 
and the Church is the rule of faith ! And yet the peo- 
ple and their true pastors, those who daily labor among 
them, visiting their sick, and burying their dead, have 
nothing to do with the rule. The authoritative mean- 
ing of Scripture is declared by your bishops, and even 
of these, not one in ten has any thing to do with it. 
What, for instance, have you to do with it ? Practi- 
cally, it is in the hands of the Pope and his cardinals. 
So that ''holy mother ^^^ the rule of faith, is made up 
of a few holy fathers, many of whom, as to sense, are 
the merest drivelers, and as to morals, the merest de- 
bauchees ! Now, sir, if I go to these holy fathers^ who, 
individually, are men, but who, unitedly, are '' holy 
mother ^"^ for the sense of Scripture, must not my re- 
ligion be based upon man? and from building upon 
such men, I am compelled to cry out, in the language 
of the Litany, '' May the good Lord dehver me." 

But admitting, for the sake of the argument, that I 
am bound to receive the Scriptures as your Church in- 
terprets them, then will you answer me a few ques- 
tions ? How am I to obtain her sense of them ? On 
the greater part of the Scriptures she has given forth 
no binding interpretation. At what period of the life 
of holy mother am I most likely to get a true inter- 
pretation ? Is it when she was Arian with Pope Li- 
berius ? or when she was pagan with Marcellinus ? or 



252 KIR WAN's REPLY 

When inquire. Important questions. 

when she was Pelagian with Pope Clement XI.? or 
when she was infidel with Leo X. ? or when strumpets 
were her waiting-maids with John XII. and Alexander? 
or is it when she was drunk with the blood of the mar- 
tyrs ? or when rival popes were tearing out each other's 
bowels ? or is it when in the height of her charity she 
was thundering her curses from Trent against all who 
refused to say Amen to her decisions ? These, sir, are 
very important questions to be answered, as I may be 
Arian, Pelagian, or infidel, a Calvinist, or an Arminian, 
according to the time I seek from holy mother her in- 
terpretations of the word of G-od. Perhaps my rever- 
ence for the venerable old lady, now in her wrinkles 
and dotage, might be greater than it is, were it not for 
my sense of her dissolute and changeful life. 

But I find I have finished a letter without finishing 
my analysis of the principle under examination. I 
will resume it in my next. 

Yours, &c., Kir WAN. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 253 

Examination renewed. God my father. Blistered lips. 



LETTER III. 

Examination of Church Interpretation continued. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter I commenced, with- 
out concluding, an examination of the principle that 
the Bible has no authority save what your Church 
gives it^ and that it must be understood and received 
as your Church interprets it. Upon this principle, 
sufficiently disproved by the considerations already pre- 
sented, I have a fev^ things more to say. 

I must receive the Scriptures in the sense and mean- 
ing which your Church gives them ! God is my fa- 
ther, and Jesus Christ is my Savior as well as yours. 
His word is a revelation of his will to me as well as to 
you, or as to any body of men upon earth. " G-od, who 
at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times 
past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these 
last days spoken to us by his Son ;" so that, notwith- 
standing the puerile distinction, unworthy of a man of 
sense, you make (paragraph No. 40), G-od does speak 
to me through the prophets, and his Son, in his word ; 
and yet I must not hear him, nor consider his sayings 
as possessing any authority or meaning, until holy 
mother gives his sayings to me authority and meaning ! 
that is, I must hear God only when he uses the lips 
of holy mother — lips which have blistered under the 
curses which she has been pronouncing against me for 



254 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Holy mother in her bloom. How know 1 Sharp corner. 

ages ! Holy mother, sir, in the bloom of her youth, 
and in the maturity of her years, " lived deliciously, 
and courted kings to her couch." But hers has been 
a dissolute life. She has made the earth drunk with 
the wine of her fornication ; and, although in her wrin- 
kles and dotage, you now tell me that I can hear God 
only through her, and that I must bow my ear to the 
stream of her fetid breath, and at the risk of all your 
curses learn God's will only as she expounds it ! If 
such a claim, calmly put forth, is not a proof of dotage, 
what can be ? Bishop Hughes, how old are you ? 

But why bind me to receive the Scriptures only in 
the sense which your Church gives them ? How can 
I know that she gives them a correct sense ? or must 
I take this for granted? The popes are admitted to 
be infallible; so are the bishops, and so are general 
councils. Pope has contradicted pope, bishop bishop, 
and council council. How, then, can I confide in their 
interpretation of Scripture ? How can I be infallibly 
assured that any other man or body of men is infalli- 
bly qualified to guide me into the meaning of the Scrip- 
tures ? If I, Kirwan, reject my own prayerfully re- 
ceived sense of Scripture for yours, John Hughes, then 
are not you above the Scriptures to me ? And do not 
I virtually reject what God says for what you say, who 
can now and then turn a sharp corner, and leave the 
truth behind you ? And if this is not infidelity, what 
is it? 

But to this you reply that I must not look to your 
interpretation, but, as says the creed of Pius IV., to 
*' the unanimous consent of the fathers." But here 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 255 

Who are the fathers ? Wrote but little. Preposterous. 

again the '' private reasoner" has some important ques- 
tions to ask. Who are the fathers ? Where or with 
whom do they hegin or end ? This is an unsettled 
question. Were they not uninspired men and fallible ? 
This is admitted. Origen, among other errors, taught 
Universalism ; Augustine retracted his errors ; Tertul- 
lian was a Montanist ; and can fallible men make an 
infallible rule ? 

Besides, the early fathers wrote but little in the 
way of scriptural interpretation. If any thing, we 
have scarcely any thing from the fathers before the 
middle of the second century; and but httle, save 
fragments, of the first three centuries, and these cor- 
rupted; and what we have from those early times 
serves no purpose in settling the points in controversy. 
They differed widely among themselves : some of them 
condemn your Apocrypha — some of them your absurd 
doctrine of transubstantiation ; and yet, while these 
fathers were fallible, and differed among themselves ; 
while they pointedly condemn in some things the teach- 
ings of your Church, and wrote but little in the way 
of scriptural interpretation, yet we must receive the 
Scriptures " according to the unanimous consent of the 
fathers !" Is not this preposterous ? Have you not 
excommunicated your common sense and reason ? 

But, for the sake of the argument, let us admit that 
these erring and contending fathers Avere unanimous 
in their support of the distinguishing doctrines of your 
Church. What, then, does this avail ? If unanimous 
in teaching v/hat the Scriptures do not, their teaching 
can not be received; if in what the Scriptures do 



256 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Unity no proof of truth. The blind. From one to the other. 

teach, we receive that without them. Nor is unity 
any evidence of truth in itself. Men in multitudes 
have been united for ages in supporting a lie; and 
union is in the inverse ratio of knowledge. The more 
perfect the ignorance, other things being equal, the 
more perfect the union. When the blind lead the 
blind, they cling very close together. Individuals in 
full vision often select different roads to the same 
place, but the blind crowd along the same road, and 
cling to one another like swarming bees, even on the 
brink of the precipice. Hence the proverb, *' If the 
blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch ;" and 
if the successors of Moses, who sat in his seat, and 
boasted that they were his ecclesiastical descendants, 
were blind leaders of the blind, may it not be possible 
that the same may be the case as to the descendants 
of Peter ? Your letters, now before me, give the plain- 
est evidence that the eyes of your mind stand in great 
need of couching. that you might apply to them 
the eye-salve spoken of in Revelation ! 

But, you reply, this is forbidden by the fact that 
your bishops are the descendants of Peter, and that 
they have the promise of divine guidance. But they 
are no more the descendants of Peter than were the 
Jewish priests the descendants of Moses and Aaron ; 
so that, reasoning from the one to the other, this plea 
avails nothing. '' We be Abraham's seed," said the 
Jews. ^' If ye were Abraham's children, ye would do 
his works," replied the Savior. ^^We be Moses' dis- 
ciples," cried the Pharisees. " Had ye believed Moses, 
ye would have believed me," says Christ. And it is 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 257 

Apostolic succession. Joe Smith. Quite a pope. 

surprising that a man like you, professing to be a mas- 
ter in Israel and a chief pastor in the Church of God, 
could for a moment lose sight of the palpable truth 
that the true evidence of apostolical succession is apos- 
tolical faith and practice. In your fourth letter (par- 
agraph No. 41) you speak of Joanna Southcote, Joe 
Smith, and Father Miller with a sneer ; but, sir, the 
most absurd absurdity of Joe Smith is clever sense 
when compared with your principle of making fallible 
men infallible expounders of G-od's revealed will, and 
sending all to perdition who do not receive their unan- 
imous consent as its true meaning, when no such con- 
sent was ever given or can be found ! Sir, Joe Smith 
was much more of a Pope than you imagine. He 
damned, as unblushingly as you or holy mother, all 
that did not deem him and his cardinals infallible, and 
who rejected his Mormon tradition ; and if, as a ^'pri- 
vate reasoner," I were compelled to select Joe Smith 
or John Hughes as my chief rabbi, notwithstanding 
'' the sympathies of my Irish nature," I would not long 
hesitate between them. I have no great relish for the 
nonsense of either of you, but I could swallow his with 
far less difficulty and grimace than I could yours, and 
I would sooner get through the hard process. My 
throat would not have to be stretched, almost to the 
cracking of its skin, every day of my life, for the pur- 
pose of taking down some monstrous absurdity. 

But you plead the need of receiving the Scriptures 
in the sense given them by your Church, to save the 
Church and the world from the divisions and schisms 
which are the necessary result of private interijreta- 



258 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Friction. Diversity. Stagnant sea. 

tion. It is to be regretted, on the whole, that those 
who reject Church interpretation are so much divided 
among themselves. But it is difficult to form any ma- 
chinery, however perfect, without some friction. Like 
all other good things, the right of private judgment has 
been abused. But what, sir, has been so awfully 
abused as the doctrines of Church interpretation, and 
sacramental grace, and of Purgatory — prime doctrines 
of holy mother ? Diversity of opinion is necessari- 
ly connected with the exercise of the right of private 
judgment, as Grod has no more made minds to think 
alike than he has made faces to look alike, or temper- 
aments to act alike. G-od and nature abhor dead lev- 
els. Uniformity with diversity seems to be the great 
law of Jehovah ; and whether to surrender our right 
of private judgment in religious things for the sake of 
a level uniformity, or to retain it with the variety of 
opinions which may spring from it, is the question 
which here divides the papist from the Protestant. To 
my mind, it is like the question whether we shall have 
a free, open sea, with its ceaseless sounding, its ever- 
heaving bosom, and its billows occasionally rolled to 
the sky by the tempest, or a sea bound in fetters, with 
an unruffled bosom, stagnating by day and by night, 
and sending over earth and air its putrid exhalations. 
While I deplore the divisions among Protestants, and 
feel that they are unnecessary, evincing less forbear- 
ance than passion, yet, sir, does holy mother exclude 
them from her pale by her stringent rule of Church in- 
terpretation ? Has she had no schisms in her bosom ? 
An>ong her numerous progeny, have there been no 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 259 

Fanaticism fostered. Beata. Sister Nativite. 

Mother Ann Lees, no Joe Smiths, no Father Millers ? 
Perhaps, sir, you forget that the fathers of Protestant- 
ism have contended, in every age, v^ith all forms of 
fanaticism, and have used all weapons against them 
save those potent ones of your Church, fire and fagot. 
Has your Church done so ? Has not your priesthood, 
in every age, fostered fanaticism and absurdity ? Li- 
berius patronized Arianism, a branch of Socinianism. 
Montanus, more than a rival for Swedenborg, was pat- 
ronized by his contemporary pope. And the fanaticism 
of Mother Lee and of Joanna go out, as do the stars 
amid the effulgence of the sun, when compared with 
the fanaticism of Beata of Cuenza, who, teaching that 
her body was transubstantiated into our Lord's body, 
was conducted with processions to the churches, where 
she was adored as you now adore the Host ; or with that 
of Clara of Madrid, who claimed, and was allowed, to 
be a prophetess ; or of sister Nativite, who saw on one 
occasion in the hands of the officiating priest, at the 
consecration of the wafer, a little child, living, and 
clothed with light. The child, eager to be eaten, spoke 
with an infantile voice, and desired to be swallowjed ! 
And you, sir, a bishop in a church whose history is 
crowded with the feats of such fanatics, and whose 
bishops and popes have been their patrons, will quote 
against Protestants the examples of a few fanatics that 
we have ever opposed, to prove to us the mischief of 
interpreting the Bible for ourselves ! Bishop Hughes ! 
Bishop Hughes ! ! Bishop Hughes ! ! ! how sorry I 
am for you ! 

Nor is this all. You dwell upon our divisions and 



260 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Feuds. Western schism. Holy mother rent. 

schisms as proof to demonstration against our private 
interpretation, forgetting that if it is strong against 
us, it is equally strong against Church interpretation. 
Have you never read of, or have you conveniently for- 
gotten, the Western schism which rent the bosom of 
holy mother ? Have you forgotten the feuds between 
the Jansenists and the Jesuits, and those caused by 
the Augustines and the Dominicans ? Have you never 
read of the Scotists and Thomists — of the war about 
the immaculate conception of the Yirgin Mary between 
the Franciscans and Dominicans — of the feud between 
the Franciscans and Pope John ? Through every centu- 
ry of her existence the bosom of holy mother has been 
rent by internal feuds such as have never cursed the 
Protestant world. At this very hour her bosom is like 
the bowels of iEtna when on the eve of an eruption. 
It is said your memory at times is quite slippery ! 

Sir, it would have been well for you had you made 
yourself better acquainted with the annals of popery 
and Protestantism, to use your own classical and dig- 
nified language, " before you had launched your shal- 
low bark on the ocean of ecclesiastical history." 

I will recur again to this subject in my next. 

Yours, ^c, KiRWAN. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 261 



Taking argument. Doctrine, discipline, morals. 



LETTER IV. 

Examination of Church Interpretation continued. — Its destructive 
Consequences. — It is a monstrous Assumption. 

My dear Sir, — ^At the close of my last letter I was 
considering your argument for Church interpretation 
drawn from the divisions and schisms which prevail 
among Protestants. Although I have shown that the 
argument against private is equally strong against 
Church interpretation, I have a few things more to say 
in reference to it. As it is your taking argument 
with weak minds, it requires more attention than its 
merits deserve. Like almost all taking arguments, it 
is a weak one. 

I have already shown how grievously, in every age, 
your Church has been rent by schism and disgraced 
by fanaticism. I would now ask. Why the distinction 
you set up between doctrine^ and discipline and 7nor' 
als? The Church is infallible in doctrine, but not 
in disciphne or morals ! And when we compare the 
things in which she is infallible with those in which 
she is not, the latter far outnumber the former. Now 
why the distinction ? The few things in which you 
agree are called doctrine, and the many in which you 
do not agree are called discipline and morals ! So 
that the distinction is made to excuse the infinite di- 
versit3^ of opinion that exists among you, and also to 
excuse the shocking enormities committed by your 



262 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Curses the same. Protestant unity greater than papal. 

Church as mere matters of discipline and morals! 
and yet, singular to state, your Church pronounces 
equally heavy curses against those who reject her dis- 
cipline and morals, on which she has made no infalli- 
ble decision, as against those who reject her doctrines, 
on which she has ! 

Now, sir, if the above distinction between doctrines, 
and discipline and morals, is a true one, which I ut- 
terly deny — if a people may be considered a unity 
who unite in a few radical doctrines, however they 
may disagree on things pertaining to discipline and 
morals — I am prepared to show that the unity of the 
Protestant world far, very far, surpasses that of the 
papal. The things in which we agree are more nu- 
merous and more important than are your infallible 
doctrines, and the things in which we disagree are less 
numerous and less important than are your matters 
of discipline and morals ; and yet you come near wax- 
ing eloquent and becoming interesting on our diversity 
when contrasted with your unity ! But I suppose we 
must excuse you, on the ground that you are writing 
for Roman Catholics, who, poor creatures ! are excluded 
from the ranks of " private" or " public reasoners." 
Nothing saves this argument from derision but my un- 
willingness to offend against decorum. 

'^ The Church gives authority and meaning to the 
Scriptures, and we must receive them as the Church 
interprets them." The Scriptures, the Apocrypha, the 
unanimous consent of the fathers, the sacred canons, 
the decisions of councils, and oral traditions, form your 
rule of faith ; and as these, like the Bible, which you 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 263 

Infallible interpreter. Its effect. Assumption. 

seem as much disposed to ridicule as to eulogize, are 
made up of paper, types, and ink, and are silent when 
you ask them any questions, they need a living inter- 
preter; and to avail, he or she must he infallible. 
This living, infallible interpreter is your Church — ^that 
is, as I have already shown, the Church is the rule of 
the Church. To him who is infallible, all faith and 
practice are equally true. The truth of principles 
changes as he changes. Infallibility prevents the cor- 
rection of error — makes principles, however opposite, 
equally true — obliges the infallible one, when he goes 
wrong, to defend the wrong, and to stay wrong forever. 
Thus, as your Church has been on all sides of almost 
all questions, because infallible, she makes the opposite 
sides equally true, and thus lays the axe at the root of 
all true principles and of all true morals. And the 
facts in the case prove the truth of my inference. 
What truer sons of your Church has the earth ever 
borne than the Jesuits ? and what class of men have 
so undermined the foundations of all true principles 
and morals? Have you read Pascal's Letters? So 
that it may be laid down as a principle equally true 
of men and of nations, the more entirely papal, the 
more entire the absence of sound principles and sound 
morals. The maximum of the one is always in con- 
nection with the minimum of the other. 

I think, sir, that if you do not, all " private reason- 
ers" will agree that I have shown your principle, that 
'' the Bible has no authority but what your Church 
gives it, and that we must receive it as your Church 
interprets it," as the merest assumption. It is a prin- 



264 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Catholicon. Deatli of Christ. Effects of the principle. 

ciple unworthy of you as a man — ^more unworthy of 
you as a minister of the Grod of truth, and deserving- 
only the scornful rejection of all intelligent and think- 
ing men. But as the destinies of this ruined world 
and of the true Church of God are bound up in the 
principle, let us look at its effects when carried out. 

" The interpretation of the Church :" this is your 
great principle, and your catholicon for all divisions 
and heresies. The Jewish Church was infallible, as 
your chief writers assert, and the Jewish people were 
bound to receive the Scriptures as interpreted by those 
who sat in Moses' seat ; and yet this infallible Church, 
by its infallible teachers, put to death the Lord of 
glory. Jesus Christ, then, fell a victim to the very 
principle which you assert — the principle of Church 
interpretation; and how many of the most devoted 
followers of Jesus Christ have fallen victims to the 
same principle, we are not to know until the day of 
final revealing. 

Church interpretation is exclusive of private judg- 
ment. If true, it would have forever prevented the 
erection of the Christian Church. It would have 
bound all Jews to remain Jews forever, and all other 
men to become Jews in belief, in order to enter heav- 
en. Like your Church, the Jewish made void the law 
of Grod by traditions. Their traditions and Church in- 
terpretation of the Scriptures were all against Jesus 
Christ. How, then, on your principles, could the foun- 
dations of the Church of Christ be laid ? They never 
could be. How were they laid ? By those who re- 
jected Church interpretation, and who for themselves 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 265 

Contemptible argument. Trying it. 

examined the Scriptures, and considered the evidences 
which proved to them that Jesus was the Messiah. 
You, sir, as a minister, owe your standing in the 
Church of Jesus Christ to the rejection of the very 
principle which you assert, and with so much flimsy 
sophistry enforce, and to the adoption of the principle 
of private interpretation, which in seeking to vilify, 
you only expose yourself to scorn. Your argument is 
contemptible, and makes you ridiculous. 

Nor is this all. If we carry out your principles, 
how can you expect us to return to your Church? 
Let me make the case my own, to give point and di- 
rectness to what I say. I am an unbeliever, but sin- 
cerely inquiring after the true Church, and I go to 
your residence to have my inquiries answered. You 
state to me the marks of the true Church, beginning 
with that of unity ^ and quote some Scripture in con- 
firmation. But what must I do? for I am forbidden 
the exercise of my private judgment. If I say the 
mark is a true one, and is based on Scripture, that is 
a private judgment which I have no right to exercise ; 
if I deny it and the relevancy of the texts quoted, it is 
again a rejection of your principle. You pass on to 
the next mark, sanctity^ and dwell upon your holiness 
of doctrine. To be satisfied of this being a true mark, 
I must compare your doctrines with those of the Scrip- 
tures ; if I come to the conclusion the mark is a true 
one, I reject your rule ; if to the opposite conclusion, I 
yet reject it. Our conversation ends, and I retire ei- 
ther impressed by your arguments or bewildered by 
your sophistry. In a few days I return, saying, *' Well, 

M 



266 kirwan's reply 

Would you receive me? Suicidal argument. 

Bishop Hughes, I have deeply considered your state- 
ments, and I have concluded that they are true, and 
that yours is the true Church, and I wish to connect 
myself with it." Would you receive me ? Grladly ; 
and yet, by receiving me, you deny the truth of your 
own rule, and admit that a man, on his private judg- 
ment, can ^'make an act of faith." If converts can 
not be made in this way to popery, how can they be ? 
If made in this way, where is the force or the truth of 
your denunciations of private judgment ? If men have 
no right to read or to judge of the Scriptures for them- 
selves — no right to form an opinion as to the clashing 
claims for the true Church, why the series of letters 
before me, in which bold assertion, a little truth, much 
sophistry, perverted texts of Scripture, and no little 
arrogance, are mixed and mingled together, to prove 
that yours is the true Church, and to induce all to flee 
to her fold who wish to escape perdition ? Sir, your 
doctrine is a suicidal one ; your Church can not live 
with it, nor can it live without it. It is gotten up for 
babes in intellect, and not for men. 

But let us admit the full truth of the doctrine, and 
that it is binding on every mortal : what follows ? I 
must give up my Bible and lock up my private judg- 
ment. Wishing to know what meaning the Church 
gives John, v., 39, I apply to my neighboring priest ; 
but he has not read the fathers, nor the canon law, nor 
the decrees of councils, nor the bulls of the Pope, nor 
the Scriptures. He applies to you, his bishop ; nor 
have you read them. You apply to the archbishop ; 
nor has he read them. He applies to the cardinals ; 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 267 

Who knows the rule of faith ? Round about. Empty heads. 

nor have they read them. They apply to the Pope ; 
nor has he read them. I here venture the assertion 
that there is not a Hving man who has read your rule 
of faith. How can I know, then, what the Church 
teaches? Even if her teachings were harmonious, 
there is no knowing. But, for the argument, I grant 
that the Pope and his cardinals, who virtually compose 
'' holy mother," do know the rule. They tell the arch- 
bishop, he tells you, you tell the priest, and the priest 
tells me ; and, however my common sense revolts 
against it, I must receive it as a good son of the 
Church ! 

See, then, the position to which your doctrine re- 
duces every thinking and thoughtless man. It brings 
us all on our knees before your priests, multitudes of 
whom are as unprincipled and wicked as they are ig- 
norant ; deprives us of the right of private judgment, 
and compels us to throw away our brains, and to bow 
reverently our empty heads before your priests, and to 
receive piously whatever nonsense they may see fit to 
ladle into them. 

These, sir, are the considerations which prove the 
principle I have been considering not only a mere, but 
a monstrous assumption ; a principle which, whether 
true or untrue, is equally fatal to the claims of your 
Church. I deeply regret that any clever son of old 
Ireland, after breathing so long the air of freedom, 
should lend himself to the support of such a monstrous 
principle. And the logical power which you display in 
its support gives you high claims to the chair of logic 
in the university of Heliopolis ! 



268 kirwan's reply 

Turning to the Bible. That the lamp. 

How pleasant it is to turn from such a rule to the 
simple and pure word of God, given to be a lamp to 
our feet and a light to our paths. If with that lamp 
we wander from the way, the fault is in ourselves. 
It is not because of the obscurity with which God has 
revealed his will, but because our foolish minds are 
darkened by reason of sin. But I must not forget that 
my only object is to show the utter fallacy of your 
principles. Yours, Kirwan. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 269 



Church theory, 



LETTER Y. 

The Papal Church Theory. — A Mistake in selecting Peter for the Ti- 
ara. — The Prayer of Christ for Peter realized for him and all his 
Successors. — The question, Was Peter Pope 1 examined. 

' My dear Sir, — In my last letter I concluded my 
analysis of the principle you assert, that the Bible has 
no authority save what your Church gives it, and that 
it must be understood and received as your Church in- 
terprets it. A principle more untrue, more absurd, 
more suicidal, has never been asserted. It can not be 
more absurd, but it is infinitely more dangerous than 
your doctrine of transubstantiation. Although the ref- 
utation of that principle saps the foundation of all that 
you have written, yet there are other principles mixed 
up with your postulates that require notice. Among 
these is the principle involved in your theory of the 
Church. As the paragraph which you mark 5 con- 
tains the great outline of your Church theory, I will 
here quote it entire. 

'' 5. But twelve apostles, invested with equal au- 
thority, might disturb the order and defeat the object 
which their Lord had appointed them to establish and 
secure. His kingdom was to be one, united in itself; 
His sheep were to be comprised in ' one fold,^ under 
' one shepherd,^ and not under tivelve. Accordingly, 
out of the twelve, being all apostles, and, as such, equal 



270 kirwan's reply 

Peter selected. The chain. Often confuted. 

in dignity and authority, He selected one^ Peter ; and, 
in addition to the apostleship, which he enjoyed hke 
the others, conferred on him special^ singular^ and in- 
dividual prerogative and power, which had not been 
conferred on the other eleven, either singularly or col- 
lectively ; and, as our Lord had said many things to 
the multitude at large, and some things to the apostles 
alone, so, also. He addressed many instructions to the 
apostles as such, including Peter ^ and some things to 
Peter alone^ in which the others had no direct lot or 
part. Satan, he said, desired them (all), that he might 
sift them as wheat ; hut He prayed for Peter, that his 
faith might not fail ; and that he, being once convert- 
ed, should confirm his brethren. The efficacy of this 
prayer of the man-Grod has been realized in His Church 
from the days of Cephas himself, through the whole 
line of his successors, down to the exercise of the chief 
apostleship^ in our own times, by the great and illustri- 
ous Pius IX." 

The great papal idea here asserted is the placing of 
Peter over the other apostles as their superior, and as 
the '^ Yicar of Christ," and as the head of the Church, 
and the perpetuation of this office in his successors 
down to the present day. Do you not know, sir, that 
these claims set up in behalf of Peter have been proven, 
very many times, to be without the shadow of a found- 
ation ? And yet you assert them as confidently as if 
they had never been questioned, and quote Scripture 
to prove them, just as if we had a right to form any 
opinion adverse to yours on the subject ! Before at- 
tempting to show, what has been so often shown be- 



TO BISHOP HUGHRS. 271 

Peter a poor selection. Why not John ? Put him up. 

fore, that poor Peter was never made pope, there are 
one or two ideas I wish to suggest just here. 

Do you not think that your Church made a mistake 
in selecting Peter for the tiara ? Would you not have 
succeeded better with some of the other apostles- — one 
of the '' sons of thunder," for instance ? And how pa- 
pal would be the idea — a son of thunder ''thundering 
from the Vatican !" Would you not have succeeded 
with John better than with Peter? You could have 
urged in his behalf that he was the beloved disciple- — 
that he was often in the bosom of his Lord — that Pe- 
ter, on a certain occasion, sent him to ask of the Savior 
a question which he feared to ask himself — that he 
did higher service to the Church by his writings, which 
form so large a part of the New Testament — that he 
outran Peter, and reached first the sepulchre — that he 
outlived all the other apostles ! And this would save 
you all questions about John, the beloved disciple, the 
inspired apostle, the lovely evangelist, being subject to 
a successor of Peter who probably had never seen 
Christ, nor perhaps Peter. If John were your candi- 
date, you could not say so much about ''this rock," 
nor about "the keys;" but then you would not be 
pressed, as now, about " get thee behind me, Satan" 
— about Peter's swearing so, and denying his Master. 
My opinion is, but I am a " private reasoner," that you 
would have succeeded better with John. I would ad- 
vise you to correct tradition, for I have no doubt she 
has erred^ and substitute John for Peter. You will 
find it a wonderful relief. 

The use you make of the text you quote in the 



272 If I R W A N ' S R E P I. Y 

Singular argument. ■ The Trinity. Singular assertion. 

above paragraph strikes me very singularly. Satan 
desired the apostles, as he once did Job, that he might 
sift them as v^heat. Knowing Peter to be most in 
danger of them all, he prayed especially for him ; and 
from this passage, w^hose only object is to show that 
poor Peter was more in danger of falling under the in- 
fluence of the devil than any of his brethren, you de- 
duce an argument for his supremacy ! I have no 
doubt, if hard pressed, that, like some astute critics of 
former days, you could find the history of the children 
of Israel in the Iliad of Homer, and the doctrine of 
the Trinity in the sun, moon, and stars ! What bounds 
can confine the power of a man who can create Grod 
out of a wafer ? 

Consider well the following sentence in the above 
paragraph: '' The efficacy of this prayer of the man- 
God has been realized in his Church from the days of 
Cephas himself, through the whole line of his success- 
ors, . . . down to the great and illustrious Pius IX." 
Considering all things, this is a most extraordinary as- 
sertion. That is, Peter's faith never failed, nor has the 
faith of a single pope from Peter to Pius ! Notwith- 
standing the prayer of his Master, Satan sifted Peter. 
In the hour of severe trial his faith failed. When ac- 
cused in the palace of Pilate of being one of the disci- 
ples, '' he began to curse and to swear, saying, I know 
not the man ;" and is it in this way that the efficacy 
of that prayer '' has been realized through the whole 
line of his successors ?" And yet, Peter, cursing and 
swearing, was an angel in comparison with many in 
^'the. line of his successors." I know not how you 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 273 

Was Peter made Pope ? The witnesses. Tradition. 

could make an assertion more historically false, and 
the truth of which your own writers — yes, and John 
Hughes himself, deny. 

But the question returns. Was Peter made Pope to 
exercise supreme authority in the Church ? and was 
the power thus conferred upon him hereditary, to de- 
scend to all his successors in the See of Rome ? This 
is a doctrine or principle with which your Church 
stands or falls. The Pope is the centre of unity, and 
to be separated from him, according to your showing, 
is to be cast out among heathens and pubhcans. This 
principle, involving the existence of your Church and 
my salvation, I deny, and put you on the proof. 

If called to prove this principle in a court of justice, 
how would you proceed ? "Would you call upon tradi- 
tion to give her testimony ? But tradition has been in 
the keeping of the Pope ; and this would be like call- 
ing on the Pope to testify to his own supremacy, which, 
in view of the power and emoluments of his office, I 
have no doubt he would be willing to do. But would 
his testimony be received? Would you invoke the 
aid of the Scriptures ? But this would be giving up 
one of your fundamental principles, as the Scriptures 
to us have no sense but what the Church, which is 
virtually the Pope, gives them. This would be again 
calling on the Pope to testify to his own supremacy, 
which could not be admitted. But supposing you ad- 
mit the common-sense meaning of the Scriptures to 
bear on the case, which every body not a papist is will- 
ing to do, where would you commence ? 

Would you cite the very pertinent passage in Luke 

M 2 



274 K 1 R ^V A N ' S REPLY 

Not to the point. Not a word about supremacy. 

(xxii.j 24-30), where the Savior so sharply rebukes his 
disciples because there was a strife among them as to 
which of them should be greatest ? or that of Mark 
(ix., 34), where, again reproving them for their conten- 
tion about pre-eminence, he says, " If any man desire 
to be the first, the same shall be last of all and servant 
of all ?" Would not the judge say, " Bishop Hughes, 
these texts are not to the point; for if Peter were 
placed over the disciples, why contention among them 
for pre-eminence ? Would not Christ have settled the 
matter at once, and say. Contend no more, I have made 
Peter your Pope ?" 

Driven thence, would you next cite the passage in 
Ephesians (iv., 11), where Paul enumerates the vari- 
ous kinds of teachers which Christ on his ascension 
gave to the Church, as apostles, prophets, evangelists, 
pastors, teachers for the perfecting of the saints, and 
the parallel passage in 1 Corinthians (xii., 28) ? Would 
not the judge again say, '' Bishop Hughes, these are 
not to the point, as they say nothing about a Pope, nor 
a word about the supremacy of Peter." 

Foiled again here, would you next cite the passage (1 
Cor., i., 12) which informs us of pastors in the Church 
of Corinth, one claiming to be of Paul, another of Apol- 
los, and another of Peter ? and then would you turn to 
the passage in Galatians (ii., 14), where Paul most 
sharply rebukes Peter for his dissimulation ? Would 
not the judge reply, " Bishop Hughes, what do you 
mean ? If Peter were Pope, why did he not excom- 
municate the parties of Paul and Apollos at Corinth, 
those early Protestants against his supremacy ? If he 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 275 

If Pope, why ? Peter sent. A little excited. 

were Pope, why for a moment permit Paul at Antioch 
to dispute his right to dissemble when circumstances 
required him so to do ? These passages, sir, are against 
you, instead of proving the position you assert." 

Foiled again, would you cite the passage in Acts (viii., 
14), where the apostles in Jerusalem sent Peter and 
John to Samaria to assist in carrying on the good work 
there ; and that other passage in the 15th chapter of 
Acts, where James declares the decision of the council 
at Jerusalem, called to consider some ceremonial ques- 
tions started among the churches of the Grentiles by 
Judaizing teachers? The judge would again reply, 
" These passages are not to the point ; for if Peter 
were Pope, would he bear to be sent by those beneath 
him to Samaria ? Would he permit James to preside 
in Jerusalem at that first council, and to declare its 
will — duties which devolved on him by right of office? 
These passages, sir, are sadly against you." 

You now, with some little Irish excitement created 
by these repulses, quote the passage in Matthew (xvi., 
18, 19) : " Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I build 
my church ; I will give unto thee the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven." This you do with an air of assur- 
ance, feeling that you have trapped the judge at last. 
But he replies, being at once a Christian and a sound 
lawyer, '' Bishop Hughes, these are disputed texts as 
to their true import ; and the point that you wish to 
establish, being one of transcendent importance, should 
have something to sustain it besides texts of doubtful 
meaning. You so explain this text as to make Peter 
the foundation of the Church ; but Peter himself denies 



276 K I R ^V A N ' S RE P L Y 

The rock of Peter. Better upon Christ. Sharp answer. 

this by asserting that Christ is its foundation (1 Peter, 
2d chap.). Paul also denies it when he says that 
Christ Jesus is the only foundation that has been or can 
be laid (1 Cor., iii., 11), and when he represents Jesus 
Christ himself as the chief corner-stone (Eph., ii., 20). 
And Jerome, Chrysostom, Origen, Cyril, Hilary, Augus- 
tine, make ' the rock' to mean, not Peter, but the faith 
or confession of Peter. And as to the gift of the keys, 
that avails you nothing as to the supremacy of Peter, 
for they were given equally to the other apostles as to 
him ; and besides, I do not see what could be gained 
by placing the Church upon Peter, as, for all inter- 
ests concerned, it is better that it should be built upon 
Christ." 

Thus repulsed on every hand, I hear you ask, in an 
excited tone, rather warm for a bishop, but quite nat- 
ural for your countrymen, '' If these evidences are re- 
jected, what will your Honor admit as bearing upon 
the point ?" AVith the calmness becoming a judge, he 
replies, '' Bishop Hughes, I want proof beyond ques- 
tion that Jesus Christ made Peter Pope. I want clear 
proof of the fact that he ever exercised the power of 
the Pope in any one case. I want proof that evev one 
of the apostles or any other contemporary ever referred 
to him, or applied to him as Pope. And as your ob- 
ject is to prove the perpetuity of the popedom, if you 
prove that Peter was invested with supremacy over 
the other apostles, I want you then to prove that that 
supremacy was not to end with his death, but that it 
was to be held in fee for his successor forever. When, 
sir, these points are proved, and not before, you may 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 277 

Have you proof? Brick without straw. Bad title 

look for a decision in your favor. Have you proof as 
to these points ?" 

Looking upon a judge with disdain who thus requires 
you to make brick without straw, and to prove what 
so many ages have taken for granted, you collect your 
papers and make your exit, cursing him in your heart 
as a private reasoner. 

Sir, your assertion of the supremacy of Cephas is 
the merest assumption, and I think you must see it to 
be so. You would not claim the possession of an acre 
of land in an Irish bog if you could advance no better 
title to it than you put forth for the supremacy of 
Peter. But the end is not yet. 

Yours, KiRWAN. 



278 kirwan's reply 

Return to court. Peter first pope. Early records. 



LETTER VI. 

Was Peter Pope 1 — Examination continued. — But two Arguments that 
can not be answered. — Tillotson's Opinion. 

My dear Sir, — In my last letter I entered upon an 
examination of the claims of the Pope to supremacy 
^vithout concluding it. I showed you that in the test- 
ing of these claims, the testimony of tradition was in- 
admissible, and that the teaching, the facts, and the 
tenor of the New Testament are directly in opposition 
to them. But as a man of spirit, greatly unwilling 
that a mere '^ private reasoner" should have even the 
appearance of victory over you, you appear again in 
court to prove, by other evidence, that Peter was 
clothed by Christ with supremacy, and that he was 
first Pope of Rome. The judge having already decided 
against the testimony adduced to prove the first point, 
and having called for evidence which you can not ad- 
duce, you address yourself to the second, to prove that 
Peter was the first Pope of Rome. You state the point, 
and his honor calls for the testimony ; and with an air 
of triumph you adduce the early records of the Church, 
from its foundation to the fifth century, among which 
are the books of the New Testament. The judge says, 
'^ Well, Bishop Hughes, we will commence with these 
documents, and examine them in their order." The 
proposition is a fair one, and you consent. 

'' Mark," says the judge, ''was a friend and follower 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 279 

Mark silent. Peter's modesty. Paul silent. 

of Peter. He wrote his gospel at Rome, about thirty- 
years after the ascension of Christ. Some of the fa- 
thers even say that it was revised by Peter. Does he 
say any thing about Peter being Pope of Rome ?" You 
reply, " No ; Mark is silent on the subject." So that 
document is laid aside. 

" Here are Peter's own letters," says the judge, 
" written but a short time previous to his death — thirty 
years, at least, after his alleged investiture with the 
supremacy. Do thei/ say any thing upon the subject ?" 
'' No," you reply ; " it would not be modest in him to 
say any thing about the matter." So these are laid 
aside ; the judge remarking, in an under tone, " It 
would have been well if the successors of Peter had 
imitated his modesty, who, after being nearly forty 
years Pope, in two letters to the churches says not a 
word about his supremacy." Modesty, you know, is 
not an episcopal virtue. 

'' Next are the letters of Paul," says the judge, 
^'written from Rome, and to the Romans. Do they 
bear any testimony to the point to be proved ? His 
letter to the Romans was written several years after 
Peter was made Pope there. Does he say any thing 
about Pope Peter ? At the close of the letter he sends 
his affectionate salutations to upward of twenty per- 
sons ; does he mention Pope Peter ? "When, accord- 
ing to your showing, Peter was in the plenitude of his 
power at Rome, Paul was taken there as a prisoner. 
While there, he wrote several of these epistles ; is Pe- 
ter alluded to in them as Pope ? Is he named at all ? 
If he was there. Bishop Hughes, how do you account 



280 K I R \V A N ' S R E P L Y 

Hard questions. New Testament laid aside. 

for what Paul writes to Timothy (2d Tim., iv., 16), 
' At my first answer .... all men forsook me V Does 
Peter play again, in the court of Csesar, the part hei 
played in the palace of Pilate ? Could Paul be a pris- 
oner in Rome for two or more years, and Pope Peter 
never do him any kindness ? Could he have done him 
any kindness, and yet Paul never speak of it to his 
friends ? How is all this ?" Hard questions, these. 

Vexed to the quick by these questions, for even bish- 
ops have feelings, and plainly perceiving that his honor 
is a '' private reasoner," you reply, " We will lay aside, 
if you please, those documents which form the New 
Testament, and pass on to the next in order. They 
have always been wrested by ^private reasoners' to 
their own destruction, who are incapable of ' making 
an act of faith.' " " But, before we lay them aside," 
says the judge, '' do you admit, bishop, that they give 
no testimony to the point before the court ?" You give 
a reluctant assent. He again asks, '^ How do you ac- 
count for the fact that they give no testimony, consid- 
ering the peculiar circumstances under which they 
were written?" You bite your lips, but are speech- 
less. 

After waiting a few minutes for a reply, the judge 
says, " We will proceed to the next document ; what 
is it? what does it say?" ^'Here," you say, ^^is Je- 
rome, who says that Peter went to Rome in the second 
year of Claudius, and was bishop there twenty-five 
years." " But," says the judge, " Jerome wrote about 
the year 400, and how did he know? where did he 
get the fact ? In the twelfth year of Claudius, Paul 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 281 

Jerome. Sad dilemma for Peter. Sober second thoughts. 

went to Jerusalem, and found Peter there. Did he run 
away from Rome ? Do popes now go from Rome to 
Jerusalem ? Or was he, like some bishops in our day, 
who love the fleece more than the flock, a non-resident ? 
In the reign of Nero, who succeeded Claudius, Paul 
went to Rome, and found the people there quite unin- 
formed as to the faith of Christ (Acts xxviii., 17-24). 
If Peter was Pope there for so many years previous, 
what was he about ? Besides, the apostles were min- 
isters at large ; their duty was, not to abide in any 
city — not to demit their general for a local authority, 
but to go into all the earth, and preach the Gospel to 
every creature. So that, if these documents are true, 
they show that Peter, at least, was disobedient to the 
ascending command of his Lord, by locating himself 
at Rome instead of laboring to extend the Gospel to 
every creature. So that, if these papers are true, and 
if they establish the point you press so earnestly, they 
will simply prove the unfaithfulness of Peter. If not 
true, your cause is lost ; if true, Peter was a disobedi> 
ent apostle, and ought to be condemned, instead of be^ 
ing followed and eulogized, for seeking his own ease 
instead of obeying his Master's command." 

As the judge, seeking only the truth, places you in 
this sad dilemma, I see your Irish heart swelling witl\ 
emotions. You seize your crook and your keys, and 
glance a wrathful look at the ^'private reasoner," sq 
unfit to wear the ermine. But your sober second 
thoughts return, and you ask, with a tone of smother- 
ed indignation, '^"WTiat proof does your honor want 
that Peter was bishop of Rome ? What proof will 



282 kirwan's reply 

The testimony needed. Prattling Papias. Produce proof. 

you admit that the popes of our Church are his true 
successors ?" 

His honor rephes calmly, but decidedly, '' Bishop 
Hughes, the point you wish to prove is one of vital 
importance ; it is the hinge upon which many grave 
questions turn, which deeply concern the destinies of 
our race. So you and I believe. To prove it, I de- 
mand of you, not old wives' fables, but testimony so 
clear and direct as to place it beyond a doubt. As to 
his being Bishop of Rome, or being ever at Rome, the 
Scriptures are silent ; and that they are silent, to you 
must be very embarrassing ; and not only so, but upon 
this vital point the apostolic men who conversed with 
the apostles are equally silent as the Scriptures. Clem- 
ens, Barnabas, Hermas, Ignatius, Polycarp, say not a 
word upon the subject. At about the close of the sec- 
ond century, Irenseus records it as a tradition received 
from one Papias, and is followed by your other author- 
ities. But who Papias was, while there are various 
conjectures, nobody knows. And Eusebius speaks of 
the matter as a doubtful tradition. Here, sir, is the 
amount of your testimony ; it resolves itself into the 
truth or falsehood of a prattling Papias, who told Ire- 
nseus that somebody told him, who was told by some- 
body, that Peter was Pope at Rome ! 

" Now, sir, the evidence I require is, first, that he 
was ever at Rome ; and, secondly, that if there, he was 
Pope of the universal Church ; and upon these points 
I will admit the testimony of the Scriptures, the apos- 
tles, or any competent contemporary. If you have any 
such testimony, produce it." You reply, '^ This is ask- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 283 

Asking too much. What the judge wants. Things to be proved. 

ing too much of an infallible Church, whose unwritten 
tradition is of equal authority with the written word." 
His honor repUes, " Bishop Hughes, it is asking a lit- 
tle too much to ask us to believe without evidence. 

" You ask," continues the judge, " what evidence I 
will admit to prove that the popes are the successors 
of Peter? I want you. first to prove that Peter was 
Pope ; if he was not, he has no successors. If he was 
Pope, I then wish you to explain why he was madq 
Pope, while he was set apart as the apostle of the cir- 
cumcision. You send him to the Grentiles, while his 
peculiar vocation was to the Jews. I wish you also to 
explain, why make him Pope of Rome instead of An- 
tioch, where we know he labored with great success, 
or instead of Jerusalem, where the Spirit was poured 
out, and where he preached with such remarkable pow- 
er ? Is it not probable that tradition has again misled 
you as to the location of the chair of St. Peter ? 

" When you have proved and explained these things, 
then I wish you to tell me by what body of men Peter 
was made Pope at Rome, and how he was elected ; 
for his successors must be so appointed and elected. 
I wish you to state how Peter w^as inaugurated at 
Rome, and what were the limits of his authority ; for 
so his successors must be inaugurated and limited. I 
wish you to prove the duties devolved upon Peter, and 
his manner of discharging them ; for such are the du- 
ties of his successors, and such must be their manner 
of discharging them. I wish you to prove the doc- 
trines and morals preached and practiced by Peter, as 
his successors must preach and practice the same doc- 



284 K I R W A N ' S REPLY 

The popes like Peter. Episcopal indignation. Silly assumptions. 

trines and morals. Peter had a wife : have your popes ? 
Peter called himself an elder : do your popes ? Peter 
exercised no temporal power : is it so as to your popes ? 
Peter devoted himself to preaching the Gospel : do your 
popes ? Peter v/as a man of no parade, though impul- 
sive, and never asked any mortal to kiss his foot or his 
toe : is it so with your popes ? Peter was very poor : 
what did you mean when you swore ' to maintain the 
royalties of St. Peter V " 

Swelling with indignation, you rise, and, interrupt- 
ing the judge, you exclaim, " Enough ! enough ! I see 
that your honor is a ' private reasoner,' incapable of 
' making an act of faith,' and of course no better than 
a heathen or a publican. You are unfitted to sit upon 
such questions or to decide upon them." And, collect- 
ing again your papers and trappings, you leave the 
court, muttering in an under tone as you go, that if 
you had his honor in Italy, under the shadow of the 
sceptre of the illustrious Pius IX., you would teach 
him what was the true evidence a judge should require 
upon such points. 

Thus, sir, in the form of a judicial investigation, I 
have examined the testimony which your Church ad- 
duces to prove that Peter was clothed by Jesus Christ 
with supremacy over the apostles ; that he was the 
first Pope of Rome, and that the popes of Rome are his 
legitimate successors. There is not a particle of reli- 
able proof as to either of these positions, while the evi- 
dence is overwhelming that they are the merest and 
silliest papal assumptions. And yet, upon assumptions 
based upon clouds which disappear before the light of 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. ' 285 

Incredible. The ship of Peter. Poor Simon Magus. 



investigation, you base the very existence and perpetu- 
ity of the Church of Grod ! It seems incredible that a 
man of sense, and an Irishman too, should suspend my 
salvation upon my church connection v^ith men called 
popes, whose ignorance, and profligacy, and cruelty, 
and falsehood have stamped their name with infamy, 
and tell me that my submission to Grod and his Son is 
of no avail unless I submit to these men, some of whom 
were devils in canonicals. 

There are two items of proof in favor of the suprem- 
acy of Peter adduced by your Church to which I have 
not alluded. I will state them to note my omission, 
and for the information of our readers. The first is 
the passage in Luke (v., 3-10), where Jesus entered 
into the ship of Peter in preference to that of James 
and John, and taught the people out of it. In the 
view of Milner, it is a strong proof of the supremacy 
of Peter ! ! The other is the story about Simon Magus, 
the magician. By his juggling miracles he made many 
followers, and greatly prejudiced the people against the 
G-ospel. He proclaimed that at Rome he was going 
to fly in the air, and Peter was there to oppose him. 
By the aid of the devil he absolutely got up in the air, 
but Peter knelt down and prayed so earnestly that the 
devil fled away, and left poor Simon to shift for him- 
self; he fell to the earth by the law of gravity, and 
broke both his legs ; and the impressions of the apos- 
tle's knees upon the stones in Rome are shown to this 
day ! These are the most unanswerable arguments 
upon the subject which I have seen. I could get round 
all the others, but these I give up I 



286 ' K I E W A N ' S R E P L Y 

Testimony of Tillotson. The system sapped. 

" The Pope's supremacy," said Tillotson, " is not 
only an indefensible, but also an impudent cause ; there 
is not one tolerable argument for it, and there are a 
thousand invincible reasons against it." 

I have now, sir, sapped two of your main principles : 
the supremacy of Peter and his successors, and that 
the Bible must be understood and received as your 
Church interprets it. The taking away of these two 
principles brings your whole superstructure tumbling 
around you. Here I might leave you striving to es- 
cape from the falling masses, but '' the sympathies of 
my Irish nature" compel me to say the end is not yet. 

• Yours, KiRWAN. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 287 

Infallibility. Bold assertion. The claim. 



LETTER VII. 

Papal Claim to Infallibility examined and refuted. 

My dear Sir, — ^Although the infallibility of your 
Church is involved and confuted in my previous let- 
ters, yet, as you place so much stress upon it, and 
make it one of your fundamental principles, I have 
supposed it worthy of a separate and independent con- 
sideration. I will subject it to examination in the 
present letter. 

In Letter III., paragraph 25, you say, '' The author 
of revelation identified himself with his appointed wit- 
ness, the Church, in such a manner that the authority 
of the one is essentially implied and exercised in the 
authority of the other ;" that is, the Church has the 
same authority and infallibility that Christ had. This 
is a plain but bold assertion. 

In Letter Y., paragraph 54, you say, " Whether the 
words had ever been put on record or not (that is, 
whether the Scriptures had ever been written or not), 
she (the Church) would have been equally in posses- 
sion of that prerogative, namely, the vicarious author- 
ity to teach unerringly . . . until the end of the world, 
the doctrines of Christ .... "What is the meaning of 
those passages, if it be not to invest the official teach- 
ers of the Christian religion with the necessary portion 
of inerrancy — in other words, of infallibility, by its di- 
vine author." 



288 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Maximum and minimum. What the proof? Where is it f 

But there is no need of calling evidence to convict 
you of teaching the dogma, the infallibility/ of the 
papal Church. It is one which your Church has 
ever boldly and strenuously asserted, but the maximum 
of her bold and confident assertion is always in con- 
nection with the minimum of truth. To expose the 
utter truthlessness of the claim, a few considerations 
will suffice. 

1. How do you prove her infallibility ? Tradition 
is inadmissible, because that has been, as you say, in 
her keeping. It is, then, either a bribed, corrupted, or 
partial witness. The Scriptures, on your ground, are 
inadmissible, because the Church must give them 
meaning, and a meaning which we are bound to re- 
ceive. The Church, you say, was before the Scrip- 
tures, and gives them credibility and meaning. Where 
is, then, the testimony to her infallibility ? It is sim- 
ply and only her own assertion of it, 

2. But where is the seat of her infallibility ? Is it 
in the Pope ? But this some popes deny, as Gralasius, 
Innocent, Eugenius, Adrian, and Paul, while it is as- 
serted by others ; and those who assert it differ as to 
its extent. While some popes deny their infallibility, 
the Jesuits say that '^the Pope is as unerring as the 
Son of Grod." Is this, sir, less than blasphemy, when 
you consider who some of your popes were ? 

Is it in a general council ? Such is the system of 
the French school, and of some popes, and of some 
councils, as of Constance, Pisa, and Basil, which de- 
posed some popes for high crimes. But in this the 
council of Lateran contradicts that of Basil. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 289 

Infallibility a vanishing point. Too limited. Short covering. 

Is it in a general council headed by the Pope ? This 
some positively affirm. But this is opposed by the two 
former parties, because denying the principle of each. 

Is it in the Church universal, consisting of pastors 
and people ? So some assert, and among them Panor- 
mitan and Mirandula. " Ecclesia universalis non 
potest errare," says Panormitan. This, however, is a 
small party opposing all, and opposed by all the others. 

Now, sir, when you differ about the seat of infalli- 
bility so widely and bitterly, what can you expect bet- 
ter from a " private reasoner" than that he should ask 
you the impertinent questions. If your Church is infal- 
lible, why does she not determine where her infallibil- 
ity is located ? "What is her infallibility worth, if she 
never knows where to find it ? 

3. The infallibihty of your Church is too limited in 
extent. Because she has no tradition upon them, she 
gives no interpretation to many portions of the Scrip- 
ture, and she forbids me interpreting them for myself ! 
"What are these portions worth? Might they not be 
as well omitted ? She has no tradition, and can not 
interpret them, and I must not ! Here is a large por- 
tion of the Bible shut up from the world, as if never 
revealed ! and yet Paul tells me that '' all Sc7Hptu7'e 
is profitable." Can that be an infallible Church that 
knows nothing, and will permit me to know nothing, 
about a large portion of God's word ? 

Her infallibility covers only the field of doctrine and 
morals^ and extends not to discipline and opinions. 
Now a list of the doctrines and morals on which she 
infaUibly decides, and of the discipline and opinions on 

N 



290 KIR WAN's REPLY 

A curious paper. Doctrine and discipline. Paley's fish. 

which she makes no such decision, and a narrative of 
her conduct in reference to them, would be a most cu- 
rious paper. Will you favor the world with it, if you 
can ? In matters of doctrine, in which your Church 
is infallible, a man may believe as he desires, if he 
only chngs to Holy Mother ; but in matters of disci- 
pline and opinion, on which she has made no decision, 
if he acts out his honest convictions, he will have emp- 
tied on him the seven vials of papal wrath. For in- 
stance, the celibacy of the clergy, communion in one 
kind, are matters of discipline ; and yet if you. Bishop 
Hughes, like Peter, should marry a wife— and a good 
one would be a great comfort to you, and would enti- 
tle you more fully to the title of bishop — or if, after 
the example of Christ, you should administer the Sup- 
per in the way it was instituted, you would soon be 
cast out as an apostate. Practically, her infallible doc- 
trines are minor matters, while those embraced under 
discipline and opinions are matters on which she has 
covered the earth with the blood and bones of murder- 
ed men. "What is the judge worth who is unable to 
decide on all questions fairly brought before him aris- 
ing under the laws ? and what is the infallibility of 
your Church worth when unable to decide on the sim- 
plest questions as to discipline and opinions, and when 
she yet sends to perdition all those who deviate from 
her practice in these things ? Paley tells us of a fish 
which, when pursued by its enemy, casts forth a liquid 
that muddles the water and blinds the eyes of its pur- 
suer. Such is the object of your distinction between 
doctrines and discipline ; but it has not the effect of 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 291 

Pope versus pope. How is it done ? Yes or no ? 

screening your absurd dogma from being hunted down 
as an impertinent and wicked assumption. 

4. If pope contradicted pope, and council council 
— if your Church has taught and denied in one age 
what were denied and taught in another, as has been 
shown a thousand times, and as you may see demon- 
strated in Barrow, Faber, and Edgar, where is her in- 
faUibiUty ? But let me ask your attention to a few 
considerations bearing on the reasonableness of the 
thing. 

Man in his best estate is fallible. The history of 
your own Church teaches this beyond any other unin- 
spired history extant. How can you make the fallible 
infallible ? Can a whole be greater than its parts ? 
Does the coming together of three hundred fallible men 
make them infallible ? 

If any of the bodies for which infallibility is claimed 
by your Church were infallible, how account for their 
awful wickedness and grievous errors ? If it inheres 
in the Pope, were John, Benedict, and Alexander in- 
fallible ? men born, as it would seem, to show how far 
human nature may sink in degeneracy. Were the 
popes raised to the chair of Peter by the courtesans 
Marozia and Theodora infallible ? Genebrand says 
that for one hundred and fifty years they were apos- 
tatical rather than apostoUcal, and yet were they infal- 
lible ? What say you. Bishop Hughes ? Yes or no ? 

But perhaps infallibility was in the councils. What 
does the noble Saint Gregory say of these ? He com- 
pares their dissension and wrangling to the quarrels of 
geese and cranes gabbling and contending in confusion, 



292 kirwan'sreply 

Council of Lyons. Its work. Where does it end ? 

and represents them as demoralizing instead of reform- 
ing. A foul comparison ! That of Byzantine, Nazian- 
zen describes as a cabal of wretches fit for the House 
of Correction. Cardinal Hugo thus addressed the Coun- 
cil of Lyons on the withdrawal of the Pope : '' Friends," 
said he, " we have effected a work of great utility and 
charity in this city. When we came to Lyons we 
found only three or four brothels in it ; we leave at our 
departure only one ; but that extends from the eastern 
to the western gate of the city." And yet infallible ! 
For other details as to the councils, I refer you to Ed- 
gar, where papal authorities for these statements are 
fully cited. And yet were these councils, canonical- 
ly convened, infallible ? Does consecration by your 
Church render a ruffian infallible ? '' The Holy Spir- 
it," said Cardinal Mandrucio, at Trent, " will not dwell 
in men who are vessels of impurity, and from such, 
therefore, no right judgment can be expected on ques- 
tions of faith." 

Can there be doctrinal without moral infallibility ? 
Is not moral apostasy as culpable as doctrinal ? Can 
there be infallibility without inspiration, without the 
special interposition of Heaven in each case ? Can it 
be transferred from pope to pope, from council to coun- 
cil ? That your people may not err, does not your doc- 
trine require infallible bishops to explain the decrees of 
popes or councils, and infallible priests to explain them 
to the people, and the people to be infallible so as not 
to misinterpret the priest ? Where does the thing find 
an end ? It is in vain that councils send forth their 
decrees unless there is some infallible way of reaching 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 293 

Contradictory. Meshes. Correcting the Bible. 

their infallible meaning ; and if their meaning is left 
to be developed by the " private reasoner," what better 
are you off than if you permitted him to read and to 
develop the meaning of the Scriptures for himself? Do 
you not knov7 that Soto, a Dominican, and Yega, a 
Franciscan, gave contradictory interpretations to the 
decisions of the Council of Trent on Original Sin, the 
last council ''that blessed the world by its orthodoxy, 
or cursed it by its nonsense ?" Can it be possible that 
your claim for infallibility can have any thing to sus- 
tain it save " old wives' fables ?" The assertion of it 
would seem to argue either idiocy or insanity, or a pi- 
ous knavery which would seek to entrap men by logi- 
cal meshes woven out of assertion, falsehood, and im- 
posture. 

Nor, sir, have we yet reached the bottom of the ab- 
surdity. Your infallible Church has set itself in oppo- 
sition to the inspired word of God, and to correct its 
plainest principles. As I have illustrated this idea in 
some of my former letters, I can only now allude to it. 
The Bible makes Grod the only object of worship ; you 
set men to worship the Yirgin, the Host, the Cross, rel- 
ics, pictures, and images. The Bible teaches that Je- 
sus Christ is the only intercessor between Grod and 
man ; you make as many intercessors as there are an- 
gels, apostles, martyrs, and saints, and send sinners to 
Mary more frequently than to her Son. The Bible 
teaches that nothing is sinful but a want of conformity 
to the law of Grod ; you make the violation of your 
ceremonial laws sinful and damnable, while the viola- 
tion of the laws of God is a venial offense. The Bible 



294 kirwan's reply 

Christianity caricatured. Not credible. Absolving one another. 

teaches that, to serve God aright, we must be regener- 
ated by the Spirit of Grod ; you pronounce this a false 
and accursed doctrine, and teach that we are regener- 
ated by baptism, and kept in a state of salvation by 
other sacraments and ceremonies which you have in- 
stituted. But I will not proceed in the sickening de- 
tail, which proves beyond doubt that your infallible 
Church has devised, and is now seeking to propagate, 
the merest caricature of Christianity ; which demon- 
strates that there is the same difference between the 
religion of Jesus Christ and the religion of Rome that 
there is between a sensible, well-formed, well-bred, 
well-behaved gentleman and a harlequin covered with 
gewgaws, seeking to amuse the people by his dress 
and his tricks. 

Now, sir, in view of all these things, will you not 
bear with the infirmities of a " private reasoner," which 
compel him to pronounce your doctrine of infallibility 
the merest assumption, whose only object is to make 
serfs of the people and tyrants of the priests ? Instead 
of being infallible, your Church is not credible ; her 
testimony is not to be relied on save when substan- 
tiated by other witnesses. This, you will say, is an 
awful proof of my apostasy. Be it so. Nor have I any 
idea that your faith in the doctrine is a whit stronger 
than mine. Cardinal Perron, you know, when dying, 
pronounced transubstantiation a monster ; and some 
priests told Bishop Usher that the chief part of their 
confession was their infidelity in the doctrines which 
they taught, and for which they mutually absolved one 
another. Is there nothing like this now going on in 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 295 

How in New York. Fleecing the poor. 

New York? Have you never made or heard such 
confessions? I have no idea that, as a rule, your 
priests beheve otherwise in your system than as a good 
scheme to fleece the ignorant poor of their money. 

Yours, KiRWAN. 



296 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Private reasoners. Two principles. Reason libeled. 



LETTER VIII. 

The Assertion that there are but two Principles, Authority and Rea- 
son, for the determining of the Meaning of Scripture, examined and 
confuted. 

My dear Sir, — Having shown how utterly baseless 
and false are the main positions of your letters, and 
exposed their utter weakness and folly, as I fondly 
hope, even to yourself, I might now let them rest. 
" The sympathies of my Irish nature" incline me to do 
so, as I fear your nervous system must be sufficiently 
excited; but my love for the race surmounts those 
sympathies, and compels me to notice what you say 
about '^ private reasoners ;" and as it gives room for 
new and curious illustration, I will devote to it the 
present letter. 

In paragraph 25, you say that there are but two 
principles, '^authority and reason," by which we can 
truly determine the doctrines of revelation. " Author- 
ity" is the principle of the papist ; '^ reason" is that of 
all not papists. The principle of '' authority" leads 
into all truth ; that of " reason" into all error. The 
reasoner can not '' make an act of faith ;" the highest 
aspiration of his mind or heart is simply an '^ opinion." 
And you say " there is not a single expression of Holy 
Writ that can warrant the private reasoners of any age, 
whether past or present, to believe that they can be 
saved so long as they trust to their own individual 
opinions for the attainment of the truth, and the means 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 297 

Not speaking Latin. Cool exclusion. Why endowed with reason. 

of spiritual life and participation in Christ." And all 
who now reject the authority of your Church, which 
now exercises the precise authority which Christ did 
while upon earth, you denounce as '' private reason- 
ersj" incapable of faith, and as '' necessarily out of the 
way which leads to eternal life." This, sir, is not speak- 
ing in Latin, as you do when you mumble masses. 
Your English is more than usually plain here, and 
so will mine be in examining the practical bearing of 
this cool assumption of your Church to think for every 
body ; of this cool exclusion from eternal life of all who 
will not permit you to think for them, and w^ho dare 
to think for themselves. 

The first idea suggested by all your dribble on the 
subject through half a dozen of letters is, that you seem 
to regret that Grod has endowed any body save bishops 
and the inferior clergy with the faculty of reason. The 
exercise of it on the subject of religion is denounced 
by you in every form as leading to schism, heresy, and 
hell. Now, sir, if the exercise of my reason is ab- 
stractedly so dangerous — if, in fact, when exercised, it 
leads to such awful results, how can you account for 
it that the Lord has endowed me with reason at all ? 
On your principles, would it not be better that I should 
have been born with a razor in my hand to cut my 
throat, than with reason in my mind which compels me 
to think on the subject of religion ? Would it not be 
better for all your purposes that I should have no rea- 
son ? And do you not daily find the simple facts that 
Grod has endowed man with reason, and with an awful 
bias to exercise it, greatly embarrassing to you ? Do 

N2 



298 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Catching disease. Arcadian scene. Wicked disposition. 

not these facts give rise to nearly all the difficulties 
with which you have to contend in the discharge of 
your apostolical duties? If men never turned '' pri- 
vate reasoners," yours would be an easy and a most 
lucrative task ! But the disease of reasoning for them- 
selves prevails awfully in America, and it is more 
catching than the small-pox ! 

With your theory fully carried out, and all '' private 
reasoning" fully suppressed, and all '' private reason- 
ers" killed off, after the manner of the extermination 
of the Huguenots in France, by the authority of your 
Church, earth would present to your rejoicing eyes an 
Arcadian scene such as the sun has not yet illumined. 
The people would be all sheep — yes, literal sheep ; the 
Pope would be the chief shepherd ; you, John Hughes, 
and your right reverend brethren, would be his watch- 
dogs. If one of the poor sheep should ever think of 
straying from your stagnant waters after a clear rivu- 
let flowing cool from under the rock, at which to 
quench his thirst, if a bark would not terrify him back 
to his place, he would be soon torn to pieces as a warn- 
ing to all the flock not to imitate his example ; and 
then the chief shepherd and his dogs would have all 
the flock to themselves, from the wool to the fat, and 
from horn to hoof. And nothing prevents your getting 
out from such a Purgatory of clashing opinions as that 
in which you are now placed, and rising up to such a 
Paradise as I have here sketched, but that wicked and 
depraved disposition of men to question your author- 
ity, and to use their " private reason." Considering 
that this abominable abomination, '' private reason," 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 299 

Reason suppressed. No new position. Bible useless. 

thus excludes you from the Paradise you desire, and 
shuts you up in a Purgatory from which neither the 
efficacy of masses, nor '' all the alms and suffrages of 
the faithful" can deliver you, you have by no means 
sufficiently denounced it. There is no hope for you 
until it is put down ! But I would advise you to 
strike at the fountain or cause of the evil, which is G-od, 
who endowed man with reason and knowledge, who 
has given him such a depraved disposition to use them, 
and who has commanded him to give '' to every man a 
reason for the hope that is in him," and who thus in- 
vites all men, ^' Come, now, let us reason together, saith 
the Lord." G-o up, like a man, to the cause of the 
evil which you deplore, and you are at once in conffict 
with your Creator ! This is no new position for even 
a bishop. 

The next idea suggested by what you say about 
'^ private reason" is the utter inutility of the Bible. 
There are but two principles, '' authority and reason," 
by which we can know its meaning. Authority is in 
the hands of your Church, to be exercised as she wills : 
to read the Bible and reason about it leads to hell ! 
Where, then, is the need of the Bible at all, save a few 
copies for the bishops and inferior clergy, which they 
may occasionally consult for the purpose of finding out 
chapter and verse of such texts as these : " Thou art 
Peter," '' Confess your sins one to another." Sir, on 
your principles, there is no need of it ; and hence, in 
purely Catholic countries, you dispense with it. Do 
you remember how many Bibles that queer man. Bor- 
row, could find in Spain ? How many, think you. 



300 KIR WAN's REPLY 

All in the air. Heart hatred. A clover-field. 

could be purchased in the book-stores of Rome ? How 
many, think you, could be found among the peasantry 
of Munster and Connaught, who yet wear the yoke of 
your Church ? If all collected, I think they would not 
add materially to the weight of the bag in which you 
pack your vestments when going forth on some of your 
episcopal visitations. You talk about the Protestant 
translation as false and as defective, but that is all in 
the air. The cause of your opposition to the Bible is 
bound up with your principle — '^authority." What 
men read they will use their " private reason" to com- 
prehend ; and if the hidden man of your heart were 
known, it would be seen that you hate the circulation 
of the Bible as much as you hate Kirwan's Letters, as 
the one is the cause of the other. Sir, there is no pos- 
sibility of sustaining '' authority" versus '' private rea- 
son" with a Bible circulated in whole or in part. So 
awfully fearful are you upon this point, that many of 
your inferior clergy never read the Bible, lest they 
should become '' private reasoners." Not long since, I 
received a visit from a priest who acted as curate in 
Ireland, and who told me that all of the Bible he ever 
saw while in your Church were the small portions 
scattered, like angels' visits, through the Mass Book. 
Sir, your doctrine of '' authority" supersedes the Bible, 
and its circulation leads to mortal sin, because it makes 
men '' private reasoners." "What a pity the Bible was 
ever written ! "Would not this world of ours be a clo- 
ver-field for your priests, if the Bible, like your tradi- 
tions, had only been left unwritten and unprinted ? No 
wonder that the thunders of the Vatican are hurled at 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 301 

Declining reference. How decide the matter. The alternative. 

our Bible Societies, which are so awfully multiplying 
'' private reasoners." But mere thunder, though noisy, 
is harmless. 

There is yet another idea connected with what you 
say about '' authority" and " reason," which, in this 
country, at least, must strike one as singular. I have 
no doubt it will so strike yourself. When two clever 
men get into difficulty, they consent to have it fairly 
adjudicated, and to abide the decision of an impartial 
tribunal. If one declines such a reference, and insists 
on having it his own way, the fair inference would be 
that he was conscious of being in the wrong. Between 
the intelligent men of our race and your Church there 
is a difficulty. Your Church asserts the right of think- 
ing for them, and damns them unless they permit her 
to do so. They deny that right. How is the question 
to be settled ? They are an interested party, because 
their civil and spiritual freedom are involved ; and so 
is your Church, because, if decided against her, she is 
ever afterward deprived of '^ the alms and suffi:ages of 
the faithful." If your claim is true, they are slaves; 
if false, they are free, and your craft is ended. How 
is this matter to be decided? Your Church replies, 
'' With me is the authority to bind or to loose ; it must 
be referred to me as the only competent authority." 
But they say, '^ No ; you are an interested party — you 
have millions at stake ; your character and standing 
before heaven and earth are at stake ; your decision 
must be partial ; but we will abide the decision of any 
tribunal save that which you set up." But your Church 
says, ''No; you must abide by my decision^ or be 



302 kirwan's reply 

Ridiculously absurd. Driveling nonsense. 

damned, '^^ Sir, were men in conflict but for a dollar, 
this would wear knavery on the face of it. Can it 
wear less when the points at issue are whether your 
priests shall he despots, and the human race their pli- 
ant serfs ? Is not this absurd up to the point of the 
ridiculous ? 

There is yet another principle connected with your 
doctrine of ^'authority" and '^ private reason." The 
man that believes all you tell him ''makes an act of 
faith," but the poor ''private reasoner" that goes to 
the Bible for himself can form only an " opinion" upon 
any subject. To illustrate : "When you tell a poor 
papist who believes you that Christ Jesus is co-equal 
with the Father, his belief of what you say is " an act 
of faith;" when I learn the same truth from the Bible 
and believe it, with me it is only an " opinion !" He 
believes on " authority," and I am a " private reasoner." 
His " act of faith" saves him ; my " opinion" damns 
me ; when his belief and mine are the same, with only 
this difference, he gets his " faith" from you, I my 
" opinion" from the Bible ! Sir, this is something more 
than driveling nonsense. It is contemptible blasphemy. 

But let us try this scheme in its application to some 
texts and truths, that we may see how it works. 

" Bishop Hughes," says John Murphy, " what is the 
meaning of that text (James, v., 16), " Confess your 
faults one to another^ and pray for one another .^" 
"Why, John," you reply, "it means, confess your 
sins to the priest, and ask the priest to pray for you." 
John believes, and makes an act of faith. I, a little 
more cautious, look at the text, and thus reason about 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 303 

John Murphy and I. Different ends. This done now. 

it. '' One to another" — that looks very much like the 
priest confessing to me if I confess to the priest, and I 
praying for the priest if the priest prays for me. I 
look a little farther after " one another" or " one to an- 
other." I find in Heb., iii., 13, the following words : 
" Exhort one another." Does this mean that the priest 
must exhort me, but not I the priest ? Very well. I 
find the following words in Eph., iv., 32 : '' Be kind 
one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another." 
Does this mean that the priest must be kind and ten- 
der-hearted to me, and not I to the priest ? that he 
must forgive me, but not I him ? What say you, 
Bishop Hughes ? Yet John Murphy believes you, and 
makes an act of faith, and goes to confession, and pays 
you, and goes to heaven; I, a ^'private rea^oner," con- 
clude you pervert the Scriptures to make a gain of 
godliness, confess my sins to G-od, and for my opinion 
—go to hell ! 

John Murphy again asks, ''Bishop, what is the 
meaning of Matt., xxvi., 26, 27 ?" You reply, " Why, 
John, it means that Christ transubstantiated the bread 
and the wine into his own body and blood, and that 
then he m.ultiplied himself into twelve, and that then 
he gave himself to be eaten to each of the apostles, and 
after he was thus eaten he was not eaten ; he was yet 
alive, and spoke to them." With his eyes wonderfully 
dilated, he asks, '^ Bishop, is this done now?" ''Oh 
yes, John," you reply, " daily in the mass." He again 
asks, " Bishop, why not give the bread and the wine 
now to the people ?" " The reason, John, is," you reply, 
" that, as the wafer is changed into the real body and 



304 KIR WAN's REPLY 

How the rule works. How saved. Not good nonsense. 

blood of Christ, there is no need of it ; for if we eat the 
whole body, we of course eat the blood with it." John 
is satisfied, makes an act of faith, and is saved ; I, 
looking a little farther into the Scriptures, soon con- 
clude that the passage means that the broken bread 
represented his body broken, and the wine in the cup 
represented his blood poured out. John Murphy, for 
his act of faith, is saved, and I, poor Kirwan, for my 
opinion, am damned ! ! 

Such, sir, is the way your rule works as to texts. 
Let us now see how it works as to some important 
truths. 

John Murphy again approaches you and asks, " Bish- 
op, how can I be saved?" " Why, John," you reply, 
*Hhe Church makes that very plain; you must be 
baptized, and go to mass, and perform penance ; you 
must go regularly to confession; when dying, you 
must receive extreme unction ; then you must go to 
Purgatory, from which you are to be delivered by the 
efficacy of masses, and by the alms and suffrages of 
the faithful ; and then you go to heaven." Amazed 
at the tedious, round-about process, poor John makes 
an act of faith and is saved, I turn to the Scriptures, 
and preferring the word of Grod to yours, believe that 
" he that belie veth in the Lord Jesus Christ shall be 
saved." John Murphy believes you, and is saved ; I 
believe God, and am damned. And so on to the end 
of the chapter. Why, Bishop Hughes, all this has not 
even the redeeming quality of being good nonsense, an 
article in whose production our countrymen are not 
usually deficient, even when their power as private 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 305 

Baseless reasons. Can't believe them. Balaam's ass. 

reasoners is at low- water mark — an article in whose 
manufacture even you yourself are sometimes quite 
clever ! 

Here, sir, I will close my review of your reasons for 
adherence to the Roman Catholic Church, as given in 
your ten letters to '^ Dear Reader." Never were rea- 
sons more baseless, or weaker, presented to the human 
mind to justify either opinions or conduct. The way 
in which you state them obviously shows that you 
never examined them ; that you received them as true, 
as a good son of the Church, without ever asking why 
or wherefore in reference to them. Your reception of 
them was obviously an act of faith, and not an opin- 
ion formed in the usual process of a private reasoner. 
And to ask me, or any sensible, thinking man, to be- 
lieve in the Catholic Church for the reasons presented 
in your letters, is on a par with asking me to believe 
that the little wafer, made of flour, which you lay 
upon the tongue of a papist bowing before your altar, 
is transubstantiated by a miserably mumbled cere- 
mony into the real body and blood of Christ. You 
might almost as soon ask me to believe in all the 
miracles of the good St. Fithian or the holy St. Bridget. 

Balaam's ass would never have had a name or a 
place on the page of history were it not for the whip- 
ping which his master gave him ; and were it not for 
that whipping, never would hairs from his tail have 
been preserved amid the sacred relics of Rome. Sim- 
ilar, I fear, will be the effect of this review in bringing 
up to public notice letters which have neither sense, 
truth, wit, logic, or even '^ clever scurrility" to recom- 



306 KIRWAN's REPLY 

Massive dullness. 

mend them, and which, if let alone, might have reach- 
ed the very depths of oblivion by the massive weight 
of their dullness. 

But, sir, although through with your ten letters, the 
end is not yet. 

Yours, KiRWAN. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 307 

Six letters. Quite interesting. No new issues. 



LETTER IX. 

The Bishop's six Letters to Kirwan reviewed.* 

My dear Sir, — I wish in the present epistle to no- 
tice, in the briefest way, those last and curious produc- 
tions of your pen, your six letters to Kirwan. If your 
papal assumptions and papal logic made your ten let- 
ters to '' Dear Reader" intolerably dull, you have cast 
into these so much low personality, so much episcopal 
impertinence, and such a strong spice of Irish ill-hu- 
mor, as to make them quite interesting. They are 
certainly readable productions, and give us new reve- 
lations both as to your fine taste and wonderful g'ood- 
nature. You can not expect that I will permit you 
to raise new issues between you and myself, so as to 
divert the public mind from the points to which I have 
sohcited its and your attention, nor can you expect 
that I could for a moment descend to the low level 
along which, in those letters, you have seen fit to move ; 
yet I would respectfully call your attention to a few 
remarks in reference to them, and this I will do after 
the manner of some old preachers, under a few heads. 

1. Your letters give us an amusing view of the man- 

* It would be very much to my taste to publish in this edition the 
ten letters to *' Dear Reader" and the six letters to " Kirwan," but 
they would increase the size and price of the volume, without a suffi- 
cient remuneration to the reader or buyer ; besides, " the sympathies 
of my Irish nature" lead me to desire to expose the weakness of my 
good friend as little as possible. 



308 kirwan's reply 

Dropped at Lent. A promising man. Died at Lent. 

ner in which you keep your promises. In your first 
series you say, '^ I propose to pubhsh a series of letters 
on the same great topics which Kir wan has discussed." 
These letters drew ^' their slow length along" until 
they reached No. 10, and the " great topics which Kir- 
wan has discussed" were left untouched. Feeling that 
you could not write such letters upon fish and eggs, 
you dropped them at the commencement of Lent; 
they have never since been resumed. In your second 
series you say, '' Your letters purport to explain the 
reasons why you left the Roman Catholic Church ; . . 
the object of mine will be to review those reasons ;" 
and yet, in your six letters, there is not the most remote 
allusion to ^' those reasons !" Is this owing, sir, to a 
want of memory or to the want of ability ? or is it a 
sample of the way in which you generally meet your 
promises ? The facts certainly show that you are a 
most promising man. 

2. Your letters give us an interesting view of your 
moral courage. When you commenced your first se- 
ries, we Protestants certainly felt and said, '' Now we 
are going to have a tract for the times, and worthy of 
the controversy." But the little spice of the first let- 
ter was not found in any other of the series, and they 
became utterly insipid, and died at the sight of Lent! 
When the second series commenced, we all said, and 
the papers, political and religious, said, '' Now we are 
going to have a racy and manly discussion." Six let- 
ters are published without touching a single topic in 
controversy, and again you retire ! and almost before 
your quill was dry you were off for Halifax ! And 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 309 

Gone to Halifax. The general flying. Hard nuts. 

when we now inquire after your right reverence, the 
only reply we receive is, '^ He is gone to Hahfax !" If 
you compare my desertion of the Catholic Church 
when a boy to the desertion of our flag by some of our 
soldiers in Mexico, to what can we liken your desertion 
of her in her present exigencies ? For a mere strip- 
ling recruit to run away in a time of peace is a small 
matter, but for the general in command to flee to Hal- 
ifax in the very midst of the battle is a very different 
affair! I hope you can satisfy *'the illustrious Pope 
Pius IX." as to all this ! But you may console your- 
self with the sage and comforting reflection, 

*' He who fights and runs away, 
Will live to fight another day." 

May we not hope to see you again, and tilt with you 
after your return from Halifax ? 

3. Your letters furnish a very nice illustration of an 
easy way of getting out of a difficulty. You expected 
to make short work of Kirwan's Letters when you 
commenced answering without reading them ! But as 
you read on, you found the nuts were a little harder 
to crack than you had anticipated, and you made the 
commencement of Lent an excuse for dropping them. 
But this displeased your priests and people, and, as the 
Freeman's Journal testifies, you were called upon to 
give to the letters of Kirwan a direct answer. This 
papists and Protestants alike desired and demanded. 
As there was no way of evasion, in an evil hour you 
consented to comply with the demand, and hence those 
six unfortunate letters which have so widely excited a 
smile at your expense. If you continue to float after 



310 kirwan's reply 

Good deal of bladder. No respect. An Irish way. 

six such letters, you have more bladder about you than 
was generally supposed. In these it is obvious that 
you have read Kirwan. Your temper and your quota- 
tions are proof of this. Again you find the nuts too 
hard to crack ; and seeing that, instead of crushing 
them, you were only covering your own fingers with 
blood and bruises, you cry out at the close of the 
sixth letter, '' You wish me to dispute with you on 
matters of general controversy; I must beg leave to 
decline the proposed honor ; I can not consent to dis- 
pute with any man for whom I feel no respect ;" and 
after bowing me, " for the present, farewell," you are 
off for Halifax ! That is, after laboring through three 
months of the last winter, and sweltering through six 
mortal weeks of the present summer, to confute me, in 
vain, you find out that you have no respect for me, 
decline further controversy, and flee to Halifax ! So 
that when a man is fairly worsted, he has only to find 
out that he has no respect for his antagonist, and then 
he can retire, crowned with laurels, from the contro- 
versy ! How easily, according to this rule, could the 
dastardly Santa Anna have gained a complete victory 
over the gallant Scott, and even after the Yankees 
were reveling in the halls of the Montezumas ! He 
had only to find out that he had no respect for him !^ 

Now, sir, I shrewdly conjecture that this way of 
getting out of a difficulty is borrowed from " old Ire- 
land." Did you ever go to school in Ireland ? or were 
those awful laws, of which you speak in your last let- 
ter, in force until after your emigration ? Perhaps, if 

* This letter was written just at the close of the Mexican war. 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 311 

An odd scene. The speech. The flight. 

you did, you may remember that Irish boys are very 
fond of fighting after school. A very odd scene, which 
was acted one evening, is now before my mind, as if 
it transpired but yesterday. There was a large, clum- 
sy fellow, that by his boasting and violent gesticula- 
tions kept all the boys for some weeks in dread of him ; 
and there was a thin but muscular boy, who at length 
resolved to meet him in a fair boxing-match. Those 
of us in the secret retired to a secluded spot and form- 
ed a ring, and the fight commenced. It was soon ap- 
parent, to the joy of us all, that the thin, muscular boy 
was an overmatch for his opponent. In every round 
he had signally the advantage. After nearly as many 
rounds as you have written letters to and about Kir- 
wan, the large, clumsy fellow, with his eyes swelled 
up, and his nose and mouth streaming blood, and 
scarcely able to stand up, thus addressed the boy that 
almost pounded him to jelly : '' You are a mean, dirty 
blackguard, for whom I have no respect, and I will 
fight no more with you." Feeling this an additional 
insult, his antagonist bared his arms for another round, 
but the beaten boy fled blubbering from the ring ; but 
whither he fled I have no means of knowing. Per- 
haps your reverence may find him in Halifax. So, you 
see, your way of getting out of a difficulty, although in- 
genious, is not new, and both you and the public know 
it is not the true reason. May I not hope you will re- 
turn to the fight on your return from Halifax ? 

4. Your letters reveal what may be regarded as a 
compound estimate of those which I have addressed to 
you. In your first series, you speak of them as ^' pos- 



312 kirwan's reply 

Compound estimate. Wind-bag. Too slippery, 

sessing a sprightliness of style which renders them a 
pleasing contrast to the filthy volumes that have been 
written on the same side," and not long afterward you 
speak of them as containing only '' clever scurrility." 
In your six letters, you say of mine that, " so far as 
regards the grammatical construction of phrases, and 
a correct and almost elegant use of Anglo-Saxon words, 
they are not unworthy of the country which produced 
a Dean Swift or a Goldsmith." This, from a compe- 
tent critic, would be high praise ; and even from you, 
it shows that your miserably exclusive and debasing 
religious system has not suppressed all the generous 
pulsations of your Irish heart. But then you speak of 
them afterward as written in the ^'true wdnd-bag 
style." Now, sir, how to reconcile these things, I know 
not, save on the ground that the " wind-bag" is yours, 
and that Kirwan's Letters have pricked it until it has 
fallen into a state of collapse beyond the power of a 
new inflation. 

5. They reveal a great dishonesty in evading the 
point of a statement. The editor of the Observer has 
already exposed your miserable and truthless perver- 
sion of the scene at the confessional, and, as you well 
know, drawn by me to the life. The exposure of that 
single perversion is enough to brand you for life as an 
unfair man — as too slippery to be trusted. So you 
evade the point of the statement as to the priest read- 
ing a dead list from the altar for so much a head per 
year to pray them out of Purgatory. Do you deny 
that such a list is read, and that^ unless the priest is 
paid^ he drops the names ? That is the point of the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. ol3 

St. Tibbs's eve. Paid in whisky. St. John's Well. 

statement. The fact you deny is a fact not questioned 
by mcj that any 'priest ever decides ivhen any soul 
leaves Purgatory I I have no doubt they will keep 
souls there as long as they can get money to say mass 
for them, if it were until St. Tibb's eve, w^hich is the 
eve after the final consummation. 

So you evade the point of the facts as to the drunk- 
en priests. You say, and truly, that such facts form 
no argument against religion, or any form of it, and 
that you have seen Protestant ministers in state prison 
for worse sins than drunkenness. But the point of 
the statement is, that these drunken, w^orthless priests, 
whether deposed or recti in ecclesia^ were miracle 
workers^ and were daily resorted to for miraculous 
cures both as to men and cattle, and for which they 
were paid in money and Irish whisky ! That, sir, is 
the point. Have you ever seen a Protestant minister, 
deposed for drunkenness, or in a state prison for a crim- 
inal offense, resorted to by Protestants for miraculous 
cures, and paid for them in money or whisky, the peo- 
ple waiting for him to get sober in order to w^ork the 
miracle ? If not, where is the point of your parallel ? 
And so as to '^ St. John's Well.*' You say that you 
'' knoiv nothing about it^''' and yet you pronounce the 
story a fabrication ! If you know nothing about it, 
what right have you to say it is untrue, when millions 
of living witnesses might be collected in Ireland to the 
truth of the statement — when the well is there to tes- 
tify for itself? Sir, is the story about St. Patrick's 
Well, in the county Down, a fabrication, whose orgies 
are a disgrace to the civilized world ? Are the Seven 





314 kirwan's reply 

Vexed. Reductio ad absurdum. Being a devil. 

Stations at or near Athlone a fabrication, where feats 
of superstition are yearly performed which cast into 
the shade those of the Hindoo fakirs ? It is no won- 
der you are ashamed and vexed when the deep degra- 
dation to which popery has reduced our unhappy coun- 
try is exposed to the indignant scorn of free and intel- 
hgent American citizens ; it is no wonder when you 
seek, in any way^ to escape from the obloquy to which 
the upholding of such a system subjects you ; but you 
should have a little more regard for yourself than to 
pronounce a thing false about which you confess you 
know nothing ! 

6. Your letters exhibit a great dislike for the reduc^ 
tio ad absurdum ; and no wonder, when your system 
offers so many and such strong temptations to use it 
And yet you know that it is a legitimate way of rea. 
soning. I hope you can not say of this, as of St. John's 
Well, that you ^' know nothing about it." I am striv- 
ing to show the absurdity of literal interpretation, as 
you use it, to prove certain papal tenets ; and I ask 
how, by your rule^ you escape the inference of being 
a devil while upholding the doctrine of clerical celibacy, 
which Paul pronounces a doctrine of devils ? My ob- 
ject is to show the absurdity of your rule, and yet you 
seem as vexed about it as if the budding horns had al- 
ready appeared upon your temples ! So as to the text, 
^' He that eateth this bread shall never hunger." The 
object is to show the unspeakable absurdity of your 
rule. If that rule is true^ then all that you have to 
do is to give your wafer to the poor famishing Irish, 
and they hunger no more. This you pronounce '' a 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 315 

Horrible blow. My infidelity. Eight reasons. 

horrible pun on the words of the Savior." You mis- 
take ; it is a horrible blow at your ridiculous interpre- 
tation of " this is my body ;" and because the blow is 
so heavy, it is immediately big with '' impiety and in- 
humanity." Now, sir, the way for you to get rid of 
all that kind of argument is to withdraw the premises 
on which it is built ; or, when you see that your prem- 
ises lead to such absurd consequences, to reject them. 
It will do you no good to get vexed about it. 

7. Your letters also exhibit wonderfully cogent proofs 
of my infidelity. True, all we Protestants are pro- 
nounced infidels by you because we are unable " to 
make an act of faith;" but the proofs of my infidelity 
are extra, and are furnished by my letters. The first 
is, I appeal to '^ common sense" very often. The sec- 
ond is, I eat meat on Friday, and think it neither in- 
jures the bodies nor the souls of men. The third is, I 
believe that intelligent worship is only acceptable to 
Grod or beneficial to me. The fourth is, I do not be- 
lieve that you can make G-od out of a flour wafer. The 
fifth is, I do not believe that Mary was the mother of 
Grod. The sixth is, I do not sufficiently reverence 
Mary, only speaking of her as ^' a good woman." The 
seventh is, I do not highly enough value the lubrica- 
tion of an old sinner, when dying, with olive oil. The. 
eighth is, I believe it is as acceptable an act to God to 
worship the head of Balaam's ass, as a human skull 
said to be that of the Apostle Paul. And all these 
specifications are melted down and moulded into one 
great and grand charge, ^'my insult to the mysteries 
of the Catholic faith." Well, sir, if these are proofs of 



316 Kill WAN's REPLY 

Candid confession. Quiver of arrows. Killing a cat. 

my infidelity, although no friend to the confessional, I 
confess them all. But let me inform you that I draw 
a distinction between Bible and papal mysteries. The 
first I receive as inscrutable and adorable ; the second 
I reject as the mysteries of iniquity. Perhaps my let- 
ters are too much pervaded by what you are pleased 
to call '' a silvery thread of wit which is unmistakably 
Irish ;" but I have long ago concluded that the scaly 
hide of the Beast was impervious to reason and argu- 
mentation, and that the tim^ has come for Wit, and 
Ridicule, and Caricature to empty upon the monster 
their quiver of arrows. There are some things too ab- 
surd to waste reason upon ; there is a point beyond 
which to reason is casting pearls before swine, and 
where we must answer fools according to their folly. 
I do not wonder that a mind so seemingly supersti- 
tious as is yours should pronounce me occasionally pro- 
fane ; but perhaps you may remember the story of Di- 
odorus about the Roman who inadvertently killed a 
cat in Egypt, one of the gods of the land. So exas- 
perated were the populace that they ran in phrensy to 
his house, and neither the files of soldiers drawn up for 
his protection, nor the terror of the Roman name, could 
save him from being torn to pieces. In times of fam- 
ine, the Egyptians would kill and eat one another be- 
fore they would kill an ox, a dog, an ibis, or a cat ! 
These were their gods, and to treat them otherwise 
than with the most profound reverence was unpardon- 
able profanity ! ! 

I accept, sir, most cheerfully, the offer which you 
make to prove one of my statements, which you ques- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 317 

Challenge accepted. The conditions. Olive oil. 

tion, a fabrication, by a formal investigation, on one 
condition, which I hope you will have the sense and 
courage to grant. The condition is this : you say that 
you do transubstantiate a little wafer into the real and 
true body and blood of Christ, and that you do this 
whenever and wherever you say mass. Now '' I am 
willing to go to any reasonable expense to prove this a 
fabrication, if either you or any other bishop or priest 
have the courage to meet me in a formal investiga- 
tion." This will incur but little expense. It can be 
done at St. Patrick's, or at St. Peter's, or at your own 
house. You can select three out of the five judges. 
We will first take the wafer and examine it. You may 
then say high and low mass over it, and take it through 
all the required liftings and lowerings needful to tran- 
substantiate it, and if it is not the identical wafer it 
was when we put it into your hands, then we will sub- 
mit to be branded as blasphemers ; but if it is, we will 
let you off without any brand, simply as an impostor. 
The offer w^hich you make would lead to a sea-voyage, 
and would require the raising of the dead, and would 
lead to some expense ; but this can be done in a day, 
and I will agree to pay the bill. Is not this fair ? 

If you reject this form of the condition, I will make 
another. Your olive oil, blessed on " Maunday Thurs- 
day," you represent as possessing wonderful efficacy 
when rubbed on a dying sinner according to law. " I 
am willing to go to any reasonable expense to prove 
this a fabrication," and that your olive oil, under these 
circumstances, has not a whit greater efficacy than 
whale oil, or bear's oil, or goose grease. And, again, 



318 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Anxious to investigate. Advice. Rude assaults. 

I will leave to you the selection of three out of five 
judges. When these offers are accepted, and these 
questions are settled, then we will make the required 
arrangements to meet the challenge which you throw 
out to myself or Mr. Prime. May I hope to hear from 
you as soon as it will meet your convenience after 
your return from Halifax? I feel quite anxious for 
these investigations. 

In case you should resume this controversy for the 
third time, permit me, as your friend, to give you a 
few words of advice. I assure you it will do you no 
harm to follow it. 

1. Keep your temper. A bishop should be no brawl- 
er. Q-ood-nature is the very air of a good mind, the 
sign of a large and generous soul, and the soil in which 
virtue prospers. 

2. Remember that rude assaults upon an opponent 
do not refute his arguments. You grievously com- 
plain of them in your own case ; can they be right as 
to me ? If I were all you say of me, and as much be- 
yond that as that is beyond the truth, that would not 
prove true the absurdities of Romanism ; that would 
not prove that you can create G-od and forgive sin, or 
that your religion is any thing else but a peacock re- 
ligion, which has nothing useful or attractive about it 
save its glittering plumage. It is only the lowest kind 
of mind that ever goes from the subject to the man, 
and it is only the resort of such mind when it is 
worsted. 

3. Remember that what you write may possibly 
live after you are dead, and that your office as a bish- 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 319 

Station sustains none. A thought to be known. 

op gives not the weight of a feather to your weak ar- 
guments, while it renders your vulgarity doubly vul- 
gar. In this country no man is sustained by his sta- 
tion ; unless he graces it, he disgraces himself. The 
person who raises himself to station, name, and influ- 
ence, is worthy of double honor ; but in case such a 
person should rise from a cabbage-garden to a mitre, 
he ought to know that the hne of conduct which would 
not particularly dishonor the hoe or the spade would 
reflect no enduring reputation upon the crook and the 
crosier. 

Adherence to this advice, if it corrects not your 
principles, will have, at least, a benign influence on 
your manners. Farewell. 

Yours, KiRWAN. 



320 K I R W A N ' S REPLY 



Turning to the people. Fair play. Many blessed. 



LETTER X. 

AN APPEAL TO ALL ROMAN CATHOLICS. 

My DEAR Friends,— In closing these letters, as with 
the two series hitherto published, I turn from Bishop 
Hughes to you. Many of you have not been uninter- 
ested readers of my letters, nor of the controversy, so 
far as it has assumed that character, between Bishop 
Hughes and myself; and while the prejudices of edu- 
cation and your respect for official station would nat- 
urally lead you to take sides with him, I am thankful 
to know that the generous impulses of many of you, 
and your desire to know the truth, have led you to re- 
solve that I should have fair play. I have appeared 
before you with no crosses before my name, with no 
ecclesiastical titles after it, making no flourish of trum- 
pets from the places of brief authority, and with the one 
simple desire to unfold before your eyes the religious 
system which has oppressed your fathers, and which, 
in its ceremonial exactions, has become too heavy for 
the earth any longer to bear ; and I am thankful that 
so many, educated as you and I were in our youth, 
have been led by these letters to seek the religion of 
Christ and of the Bible among Protestants ; and while 
there are many of you whose minds, through priestly 
interferences, have been so imbued with prejudices as 
to repel all approach to you, however kind, with the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 321 

Review. Bishop Hughes's conduct. Breaks down. 

lamp of life and light, yet this is by no means the case 
with you all. To this latter class, the intelligent and 
candid of your number, who, in this free land, are de- 
termined to think for yourselves, I now appeal. 

The history of my " Letters to Bishop Hughes" is a 
very short one. "While yet in my minority, and near- 
ly thirty years ago, I left the Roman Catholic Church. 
Motives that I now need not detail led me to write 
those letters, in which I have stated the reasons which 
induced me to give up the religion of the priest for that 
of the Bible. To these letters Bishop Hughes attempt- 
ed an indirect reply in ten letters, and broke down in 
the midst of the discussion at the commencement of 
last Lent. As these had nothing in them to answer 
my objections or to satisfy your inquiries, you asked 
for something else. Hence the six letters entitled 
''Kirwan Unmasked," in which, after abuse without 
stint or sense, and without answering one solitary ob- 
jection, he again breaks down at the close of the sixth, 
and flees to Halifax. And this, my third series, which 
I now bring to a close, is designed as a reply to those 
addressed by him to " Dear Reader," and to me, Kir- 
wan. 

The history of the bishop in the concern is about as 
short. When my letters first appeared, he could not 
condescend to answer them ! He then commenced 
answering without reading them ; and, without meet- 
ing an objection stated by me, he broke down with 
the tenth letter. When goaded by Catholics and Prot- 
estants until he could stand it no longer, he resolved 
on a direct answer to my objections, and again he 

2 



322 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Flees away. His calculation. A challenge. 

broke down at the close of the sixth letter, without an- 
swering one of them. Thinking that it would answer 
all his purposes with you to abuse me, he writes his 
six wonderful letters, which deserve a place in the mu- 
seum as a specimen of the controversial taste and abil- 
ity of popish priests, and again breaks down, and flees 
beyond seas to hide the shame of his nakedness ! How 
high his calculations on the strength of your prejudices 
and on the weakness of your comrqpn sense ! Having 
usurped the power of thinking fo^ you, he takes for 
granted that any kind of episcopal nonsense will satis- 
fy you ; but he is mistaken, as multitudes of you de- 
clare that his silence would be far better than what 
he has said, and would have inflicted less injury on 
popery in this country. One of the most intelligent 
of your number has been heard to damn him for not 
either holding his tongue or doing better. 

Such being the history of the letters, look for a mo- 
ment at the state of the controversy. There, in my 
first and second series, lie my objections to the Roman 
Catholic Church, abused from Maine to Mexico, but 
unanswered ; and I defy Bishop Hughes and all his 
mitred brethren on this continent to ansiver them on 
scriptural and common-sense principles^ or on any 
principle^ to the satisfaction of any reasonable man. 
The bishop has published ten letters, giving his rea- 
sons for adherence to the Roman Catholic Church, 
out of whose pale there is no salvation. These reasons 
I have shown to be mere and miserable assumptions, 
and utterly insufficient to justify the faith or the prac- 
tice of any living man. Bishop Hughes would not ask 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 323 

False pretenses. Defiance. Achilles. 

your note for a dollar, had he no stronger reasons for 
asking it than those which he has given to hind you 
to the Catholic Church ; and if he should so impose 
upon you as to secure your note for no stronger rea- 
son, you might sue him for taking from you your 
money under false pretenses, and send him, if not to 
Purgatory, at least to state prison, to atone for his 
crime. 

Such, then, is the state of this controversy. There 
lie my objections to popeyy unanswered. Let Bishop 
Hughes answer them if he can. There are his rea- 
sons for adherence to the Catholic Church confuted. 
Let him reconstruct his argument if he can. And 
all that he has yet done is to abuse me in a way un- 
becoming a bishop, for first riddling his building, and 
then taking away its foundations. And because the 
hopes of his gain are gone, he and his priests, were it 
in their power, would serve me as Paul and Silas were 
served at Philippi by the masters of the damsel out of 
whom they cast the spirit of divination. But we are 
in a free country. 

Roman Catholics, from this man and his miserable 
system I now turn to you. Read the ten letters 
which I have reviewed, and see how weak are the ar- 
guments for popery. Read the six letters addressed to 
me, and see how low your bishop can descend! If 
John Hughes is the Achilles of popery in our country, 
what must the soldiers under him be ! ! And will you 
longer sustain a religion, the strong objections to which 
he can not meet, and the reasons for adherence to 
which, as given by himself, are not strong enough to 



824 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Turning his back twice. A close corporation. 

hold up the spider's most attenuated web? Behold 
him twice coming to the rescue of your Church, and 
twice turning his back without even an effort to spike 
a single gun aimed at its vitals ! Can the system 
which he can not defend be worthy of your support ? 
Can the captain who deserts his post in the heat of 
battle be worthy of the commission he bears ? 

Read his ten letters, if their dullness will permit 
you, and examine their principles. What an argu- 
ment for a religious despotism of the most grinding 
and enduring character ! The Pope is the successor 
of Peter, and you have no hope of heaven but in con- 
nection with the Pope ! Be as good, as pious, as char- 
itable, as godlike as you may, you are out of the way 
of life unless you submit to the Pope, and then to all 
his subalterns ! You have no right to form an opinion 
of your own ; the Pope, bishops, and priests are ap- 
pointed to think for you ! Without a license, such as 
they give in Ireland for selling whisky, you have no 
right to read the Bible; the priests will do that for 
you, and tell you what is in it that concerns you ! To 
G-od your Father you have no right to go, save through 
a priestly intercessor, who, for a fee to suit your cir- 
cumstances, will transact all your business at the court 
of heaven ! All you do you must tell the priest, and 
thus you give him a power over you by which he can 
whip you into the traces whenever you dare to think 
for yourselves ! If the letters of Bishop Hughes are 
true, then the priests of the papal church are a close 
corporation, with the Pope at their head, with the keys 
of life and death in their hands, and through whom 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 325 



How it dogs you. Consistency. Riveting chains. 

alone Grod exercises spiritual dominion in our world ! 
What a fearful despotism is this, infinitely more op- 
pressive than any civil despotism which has ever 
cursed the world ! It meets you at your entrance 
into life ; it dogs you through every step of your earth- 
ly pilgrimage ; it stands hy you at the bed of death, 
claiming the power of opening heaven to your soul 
when it escapes from its clay tabernacle, or of locking 
it up in hell ! From the cradle to the grave you must 
only do as it ordains, at the risk of all the vials of its 
wrath ! And this is popery — yes, popery as advocated 
and practiced in the city of New York by Bishop 
Hughes! AVith what noble consistency can he raise 
his voice in Vauxhall against the oppression of Ireland 
by England, and subscribe his money to buy a shield 
for the back of the sham patriots, who, by their shame- 
ful blustering and cowardly conduct, have made Irish 
patriotism a subject of merriment throughout the 
world, and then vindicate a code of religious despot- 
ism in comparison with which that of Russia is free- 
dom ; and then filch from the pockets of the poor, ig- 
norant, credulous, but noble-hearted and generous 
Irish, the money they have earned with the sweat of 
their brow, to purchase for them chains, and to pay 
priests for riveting them on their limbs ! Roman Cath- 
olics, will you submit to a despotism which thus de- 
grades, dupes, and robs you ? Irish Roman Catholics, 
so eager to burst the chains w^ith which England has 
bound the land of our fathers, will you submit to wear 
a yoke like this? Sons of noble sires, whose blood 
and bones fatten and whiten everv field in Ireland bv 



326 kirwan's reply 

Serfs in a free land. Resolve to be free. 

struggles to break the British yoke, will you, in a land 
of light and freedom, like Russian serfs, wear a collar 
like this ? "Will you permit a close priestly corpora- 
tion, without any sufficient motive save to increase 
their corporate property, to assume over you the power 
of G-od, and to bind to their girdle the keys of heaven ? 
to enter your family, and to regulate your meat and 
your drink? if a servant in a Protestant family, to 
place you there as a spy, and to forbid you enjoying 
its religious privileges? to think for you? on every 
hand to surround you with infinitely ramified and po- 
tent influences, which are sleepless in their efforts to 
keep around your neck the yoke of servitude, and to 
prevent your emancipation into that liberty with which 
Christ makes his people free? Thousands in this 
land, and tens of thousands through all the earth, are 
casting it aside as too heavy longer to be borne ; will 
not all of you do the same ? "Will you be content to 
be slaves in a country of freedom— slaves to papal 
priests, the most degrading of all slavery — when it is 
only for you to firmly resolve, and you are at once 
spiritually as you are civilly free ? Fling the flag of 
your spiritual freedom to the free winds of heaven, 
and let your watchwords be God, the Bible, Liberty, 
and unborn generations will rise and call you blessed. 
Irish Roman Catholics, I am not so destitute of all 
sympathies with you, and with our fatherland beyond 
the waves of the Atlantic, as Bishop Hughes would 
make you believe. I sympathize with you here in 
that degradation to which the religion of the priest has 
reduced you. I deeply sympathize with our lovely 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 327 

The charge. Conspiracy of wolves. How they get money. 

country at home and our noble countrymen, so deeply 
degraded, and mainly by the same cause. I renewed- 
ly charge upon popery the low social level to which 
Ireland has been reduced, and the social degradation of 
her children in all the lands of their dispersion. It is 
popery that has made her sons and daughters, in so 
many instances, hewers of wood and drawers of water ; 
and my sympathies with you and for you, more than 
all other causes, have given existence to these letters. 
As I early predicted, the bishop rings changes on my 
apostasy ; charges me with desertion ; leaves the ar- 
gument for the man ; and in every way, save by rea- 
son and argument, seeks to vilify my name, so as to di- 
minish my influence with you. In this he is joined 
by his priests, and by the miserable press controlled by 
him. But this is simply the conspiracy of the wolves 
ravening the fold to induce the sheep to turn a deaf ear 
to the voice of the shepherd who sounds the alarm. 
Their craft is in danger, and hence their wrath. I 
here assert before heaven and earth that you are griev- 
ously imposed upon by your priests ; that for the sake 
of your money they daily practice upon you imposi- 
tions such as should brand them as impostors ; that 
they traffic in souls, and make a gain of godliness ; 
and that, instead of your veneration, they are worthy 
only of your rejection. And for the evidence of all this 
I need only point you to the moneys which they draw 
from you by their senseless masses, by their extreme 
unctions, by their charms, and relics, and penances, 
and purgatorial deliverances, and by the thousand and 
one ways in which they show their sympathy for the 



328 KIR WAN's REPLY 

Hence the hue and cry. If an infidel. My faith. 

sheep by fleecing them of their wool. And hence the 
hue and cry against me by your priests, because I 
plainly and fearlessly tell you of these things. 

Nor am I, Roman Catholics, the profane infidel which 
your bishop would make me out to be. If there were 
no alternative for me but to believe what he teaches, I 
would be again compelled to shoot the gulf of infidel- 
ity, and to build my hopes for the future upon the dim 
twilight instructions of natural religion. "What would 
I not believe sooner than that man can create God ! 
But even were I an infidel, vulgar as Paine, bitter as 
Voltaire, plausible as Gribbon, would that be any rea- 
son why my objections to popery should not be answer- 
ed ? Did not Porteus answer Paine ? Did not Camp- 
bell confute Hume ? and even if an infidel, why should 
not Bishop Hughes answer my objections ? The rea- 
son is not in my infidelity, but in his inability. He is 
unable to answer them. He has tried twice, and aban- 
doned the task. But I am not an infidel. I believe in 
the Bible. I believe in the religion of Jesus Christ. 
It is the source of my comforts here, and the founda- 
tion of all my hopes for the future. I believe in the 
divinity, the vicarious atonement of Jesus Christ, and 
in the efficacy of that atonement to save all, without 
money and without price^ who rest solely upon it. 
'' He that believeth in the Lord Jesus Christ," if there 
was not a Pope or priest upon earth, ^' shall be saved." 
This is my faith ; and it is to this simple, efficacious 
faith — ^the faith of the prophets, apostles, martyrs, fa- 
thers, confessors of all ages and of all countries — of the 



TO BISHOP HUGHES. 329 

Buy the truth. Popery and Christianity. Caged tiger. 

true catholic Church in all its ministers and members, 
that, in my soul, I desire to win you. 

Truth, and not mitres, crosses, unmeaning ceremo- 
nies, priestly vestments, solemn farces, is the only thing 
worthy of your love and reverence. Buy the truth, 
and sell it not. Dig for it as for hid treasures. This 
is the pearl of great price, and, if necessary, sell all that 
you possess to purchase it. Popery is the religion of 
children, of low civilization ; Christianity is the relig- 
ion of men, and of high civilization, where the virtues 
and graces most flourish. Dare to he Christians. 
Your attachment to popery only benefits the priest; 
Christianity will enrich yourselves. Dare to be Chris- 
tians. The night is far spent ; the day is at hand. 
0, be children of the day. Fear Grod, and then the 
wrath of the priest inspires no more terror than do the 
low growlings of the caged tiger. 

Praying with all prayer for your deliverance from 
the degrading and grinding despotism of popery, and 
for your full emancipation into the glorious liberty of 
the Grospel, I am, with all the sympathies of my Irish 
nature. Yours, Kirwan. 



THE 



DECLIIE OF POPERY 



AND ITS CAUSES. 



AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED IN 



THE BROADWAY TABERNACLE 



WEDNESDAY EVEMG, JANUARY 15, 1851. 



THE 



DECLINE OF POPERY, ETC. 



Viewed in whatever light, the setting up of the 
Church of Christ is the most important event in the 
world's history. It was the introduction of a new ele- 
ment into the affairs of men of vastly greater power 
than any previously known, and to whose influence 
there could be no bounds but those of the race and of 
eternity. At the point of time where the lines of his- 
tory and prophecy met and blended, Jesus Christ came 
into the world. He showed his estimate of human 
conditions by the selection of one of poverty. His doc- 
trines were the most pure, simple, and sublime. To 
show that he came not on any political errand, or to 
establish a temporal power, he declared that his king- 
dom was not of this world ; and he warned his apos- 
tles not to confound the mission on which he sent them 
with the powers or prerogatives of earthly princes. 
Their mission was not to govern, but to teach ; and 
their authority was not to interfere in the political con- 
tests of the nations, but to preach salvation to all men 
through faith in a crucified Christ, who came to seek 
and to save the lost. The end for which the Church 
of Christ was established was, by the diffusion of truth, 
accompanied by the agency of the Holy Spirit, to bind 
all men in love to one another, and to subdue all hearts 



334 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

into obedience to Grod. This was the sublime mission 
of the Church, and, to accomphsh it, it was forbidden 
the exercise of any authority save that of its virtues 
and graces, and of any weapons save its pure and sim- 
ple faith. It is a simple institution of Grod, with one 
simple end in view, and adapted to all times, nations, 
and circumstances. As it came from the hand of its 
founder, it might be personified as a cherubic form de- 
scending from heaven amid the children of men, shed- 
ding around her a healing influence on all the moral 
diseases of society, hushing the spirit of discord, like a 
new sun dispelling the moral darkness of our world, 
drawing men closer to one another by drawing them 
all closer to Christ, and in the course of her progress 
converting earth into the likeness of heaven. And had 
the spirit of its founder remained in the Church, and 
had there been no great apostasy from its simple faith 
and worship, long ago the shout would have been raised 
from the earth to the heavens, and would have been 
echoed back again from the heavens to the earth, '' Hal- 
lelujah, salvation, the Lord Grod omnipotent reigneth." 
And how has the Church performed its mission? 
This is a pregnant question, and one which opens up 
its history for nearly two thousand years for discussion. 
As long as it retained the spirit of Christ, and followed 
the example of his apostles, and obeyed their instruc- 
tions, its progress was gloriously onward. Its influ- 
ence was soon felt to the extremes of the Roman Em- 
pire ; and long before the last of the apostles of Christ 
went up to his reward, it had its devoted converts even 
in the palace of the Caesars. Through its martyr ages, 
when the Jew and the Gentile, the philosopher and the 



AND ITS CAUSES. 335 

peasant, the bond and the free, the refined Grecian 
and the barbarous Scythian, were in league against it, 
no opposition could retard its progress. The fires which 
consumed its martyrs only revealed new paths to more 
extended fields of conflict and victory, until its leaven 
of divine truth had reached the most distant nations, 
and its converts were found among all ranks and con- 
ditions of man. 

But now a change passes over the scene, the result 
of its very successes. Almost from its very commence- 
ment the Church had to contend with heresies which 
chiefly involved the divinity of Christ. These were 
successfully resisted; and the controversy excited a 
vast enthusiasm for the divinity of Christ, and a pro- 
found reverence for every thing in any way associated 
with him. And when Arianism, as a vanquished foe, 
was retiring from the conflict, the great Deceiver 
changed his hand, and converted the existing zeal and 
enthusiasm for the deity of Jesus Christ into powerful 
agents for perverting, depraving, and undermining the 
entire system of Christianity. And it is here we date, 
so far forth as it is a system of religious doctrines, the 
rise of popery, which, in all its ages and phases, has 
been the bane of the Church and the curse of the na- 
tions. But what is popery ? 

The discussion which secures a right answer to this 
question naturally divides itself into the two heads of 
doctrine and polity. It is the combination of these 
that forms the system. 

As a system of doctrine, it is clearly and fearfully 
developed. One extreme usually begets another ; and, 
reverting to the point of time already intimated, we 



336 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

find the zeal and enthusiasm excited for the divinity 
of Christ passing over into inordinate veneration for the 
sacrament of the Lord's Supper ; and, for its defense, 
the doctrine of transubstantiation was invented, that 
monster absurdity, and the pantomime of the mass 
was enacted. A great rage arose for any thing and 
every thing associated with his memory ; and rehcs 
were collected with incredible industry, such as pieces 
of the cross, and pictures of his person, and pieces of 
his garments, reverence for which soon grew into idol- 
atrous worship, to excuse which the doctrine of rela- 
tive worship was invented, or rather borrowed from the 
heathen. As superstition advanced in strength, it 
passed over from Christ to his friends and followers ; 
and hence the multiplications of saints and saints' 
days ; and soon reverence for the saints grew into ad- 
oration. And thus the apotheosis of heathenism was 
introduced. And to excuse this, the doctrine of saint- 
ly intercession was invented, on the plea that sinners 
themselves were unfitted to make any request of Grod. 
With these corrupt doctrines came in corrupt prac- 
tices, such as forbidding to marry, forbidding of meats, 
and the commanding of corporeal austerities. And, to 
recommend all this, the doctrine was invented that 
these practices made satisfaction for sin, and were mer- 
itorious of heaven. And lest this might seem to dero- 
gate from the satisfaction of Christ, sins were divided 
into mortal and venial. As venial sins deserve not 
eternal death, and as men might die before performing 
the necessary penance to remove them. Purgatory was 
invented, where penance for venial sins might be com- 
pleted. And as punishment in Purgatory is not eter- 



AND ITS CAUSES. 337 

nal, and as souls sent there might be redeemed by the 
good works of others, the doctrine of works of superer- 
ogation was invented. The good deeds of men, over 
and above those necessary for their own salvation, were 
laid up in the treasury of the Church, and were sold 
out to such as were willing to purchase them. This 
was by far the most profitable doctrine of popery. 

These tenets, artfully linked together into a great 
chain, forged for the purpose of binding the soul at the 
feet of the priest, were quietly received in those days 
of darkness ; and the darkness was cherished by the 
locking up of the Scriptures from the people, and by 
the inculcation of an implicit faith. And in case that 
terrible book should be unlocked and brought out from 
under the double seal of a dead lano^uao^e and a bad 
translation, the fictions were invented of an unwritten 
tradition, without whose interpretations the Bible was 
imperfect ; and an infallible judge, without which both 
tradition and Scripture were unsafe guides. Thus did 
the devil, starting on the high wave of zeal and enthu- 
siasm for the glory of Christ, build up the doctrinal 
Babel of popery, the foundation of which is laid in hell, 
whose top reaches unto heaven, and whose dark shad- 
ow has stretched from shore to shore. 

In the most favorable light in which it can be view- 
ed as a doctrinal system, popery is the merest carica- 
ture of Christianity. Its ritual is addressed to the eye, 
and its whole worship is a ludicrous pantomime, in 
which the priests are the actors, and the altar the 
stage, and the ignorant attendants, not knowing what 
they worship, the spectators. Popery and Christianity 
are just as opposite as is the truth and its caricature. 

P 



338 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

That you may see this, take, for instance, the doc- 
trine of Christ crucified for the sins of men, and as 
making atonement to the law and justice of God for 
all that believe on him. It is one that lies upon the 
face of the Scriptures. And see how popery caricatures 
it. The doctrine of the cross gives way to the image 
of the cross, which is perched on the summit of its 
churches, and is braided on the backs of its priests, 
and paraded before its bishops ; and to the sign of the 
cross, which is regarded as possessing a talismanic in- 
fluence against evil spirits ; and to that most unmean- 
ing of all mummeries, the mass, in which the tragedy 
of Calvary becomes an unmeaning and loathsome farce. 
The truth is gone, and naught but its caricature re- 
mains. 

Take, again, the doctrine of the intercession of 
Christ as our Mediator with the Father. There is 
nothing more plainly taught than that he is the only 
mediator between God and man. And yet his work 
is forgotten, and his mediation is thrown into the shade 
by the mediation of Mary, and Peter, and Paul ; the 
holy martyrs, virgins, and widows; the holy monks 
and hermits ; the holy doctors, bishops, and confessors, 
some of whom were men of God, and many of whom 
were men of Belial — some of whom were ornaments 
of the Church militant, and are now wearing their 
crowns in the Church triumphant, and many of whom 
were " wizards and jugglers, the Mesmers, and Fausts, 
and Merlins of the ages of moral and intellectual dark- 
ness." Of the true and only mediation of Jesus Christ, 
the millions of popery know as little as Chinamen. The 
truth is gone, and naught but the miserable caricature 
remains. 



AND ITS CAUSES. . 339 

Take, again, the doctrine of regeneration. How 
plainly does the Bible teach that we must be born 
again ! And this consists in the renewal of our moral 
nature by the power of the Holy Ghost, through the 
instrumentality of the truth. And this, all this, is ef- 
fected by the papal baptizer. There stands the robed 
priest, and, as the subject for baptism approaches him, 
he blows thrice in his face to drive out Satan. He 
then puts blessed salt into his mouth. Then the priest 
puts his spittle on his ears and nose ; then he is 
anointed ; then he is baptized ; then holy chrism and a 
white cloth are put upon his head ; and then a lighted 
candle is placed in his hand. And then he is regen- 
erated ! And this is the only regeneration known to 
the system of popery ; and its heaviest anathemas are 
poured out upon those who would deny that this mis- 
erable exorcism, misnamed baptism, fails to confer the 
grace which it signifies ! 

These we give as specimens of the doctrinal system ; 
and they are the best that we could adduce, and the 
most favorable to the system. It has not left a doc- 
trine or sacrament of the Church in its native simplic- 
ity. It has virtually annulled the Sabbath by its holy 
days, and the worship of God by the worship of saints, 
and the work of Christ by the works of merit, and the 
work of the Spirit by the manipulations of its priests, 
and the word of God by first corrupting it, and then 
withholding it from the people. There is not a truth 
in the system which is not clouded by some error, or 
which is not cast into the shade by some towering su- 
perstition, where it can only maintain a sickly exist- 
ence. Such is the doctrinal element of popery. 



340 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

And equally unscriptural is its polity, by which we 
mean its external organization. While the Savior 
teaches that his kingdom is not of this world, the ob- 
ject of popery in every age has been to make it so. As 
to the external organization of the Church, every thing 
in the New Testament is perfectly simple. Not a 
word is said about prelates, patriarch, cardinals, or 
popes, or about the duty of implicit obedience to them. 
There is a government enjoined, but it is as free and 
as simple as one can well conceive, while popery is as 
despotic and pompous as one can well imagine. And 
as it has no foundation in the Scriptures, the question 
arises. Whence came it ? This question is easily an- 
swered. 

As the Church advanced in age, numbers, and 
wealth, it gradually lost the martyr spirit of its found- 
ers After Constantino put on the purple, and for rea- 
sons of state embraced Christianity, its corruptions 
rapidly increased. The Church was brought into an 
alliance with the state, an alliance which has always 
worked mischief to both. Its government was model- 
ed, after the imperial, into great prefectures, of which 
Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Constantinople were 
the chief, while a sort of feudality was established, de- 
scending from patriarchs to metropolitans, archbishops, 
bishops, and priests, some with greater, and some with 
less power and dominion. As each grasped for more 
than belonged to him, the world became convulsed 
with their feuds and their wars. In these feuds, Rome, 
as the ancient metropolis of the world, and as the city 
where the martyrs shed their blood like water, had 
greatly the advantage. Its bishop, by fraud and du- 



AND ITS CAUSES. 341 

.plicity, obtained the pre-eminence over his brethren. 
The state courted the influence of the Church to assist 
in maintaining its authority, and the Church sought 
the influence of the state in extending its ghostly do- 
minion. Each yielded to the request of the other. 
The Church rapidly extended, and the ambition of 
priests conceived the idea of governing it after the 
model of the state. Rome must be the centre of eccle- 
siastical as of civil power. The state had its Caesar, 
the Church must have its Pope. Caesar had his sen- 
ate, the Pope must have his cardinals. Caesar had his 
governors of provinces, the Pope must have his patri- 
archs and archbishops. The governors had their sub- 
ordinates, and these again theirs, down to the lowest 
office in the state. The patriarchs and archbishops 
had their subordinates, and these again theirs, down 
to the very lowest office in the Church. As in the 
state all civil power emanated from Caesar, and all dis- 
putes were finally referable to him, so in the Church 
the Pope was the source of all authority, and the final 
judge in all disputes. Thus the Bishop of Rome be- 
came the Caesar in the Church ; metropolitans and pa- 
triarchs were transmuted into proconsuls ; bishops into 
magistrates; the nominally Christian Church into a 
kingdom of this world, and its ministers into an army 
of spiritual janizaries, depending for their authority and 
support upon the Pope, and sworn to execute his infal- 
lible will. Thus " the wicked" was fully revealed. 
The Roman empire has long since passed away ; ages 
ago its mangled limbs were strewn over earth and 
ocean; but in the ecclesiastical organization called 
popery, w^e have the living model of that form of gov^ 



342 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

ernment by which the Caesars bound the nations to 
their thrones, and by which they were enabled to crush 
at the extremes of the world every effort to break the 
yoke of servitude. It is an ecclesiastical despotism, 
fashioned with great exactness after the civil despotism 
of the Caesars. Because of the vitality of the religious 
element which it contains, it has long survived its mod- 
el, but it is among the things that must go, and is go- 
ing, the way of all the earth. 

Such, then, is the system of doctrine, and such is 
the polity, which, when united, form the papacy, or 
the Church of Rome. In polity, it is a pure despot- 
ism ; in doctrine, it is a bad caricature of Christianity ; 
in worship, it is far more heathen than Christian. The 
growth and the blending of these two systems were 
the slow product of ages ; but, when completed, the 
sun which had risen over Judea set at Rome, and the 
nations were at the mercy of its universal bishop. 

But how came the Pope a temporal prince ? Partly 
by donations from sovereigns in whose favor they ex- 
erted their ghostly power ; mostly by fraud, of which 
the Vatican and the Lateran have ever been the arse- 
nal and the manufacture. "Who has not heard of the 
Decretals of Isidore ? This forged and false legend 
narrates that, in reward for his healing from leprosy 
and his regeneration by baptism by the Bishop of Rome, 
Constantino resigned to Sylvester and his successors 
in office the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, 
Italy, and the Western provinces. Emperors, kings, 
and people were incapable of detecting the fraud which 
subverted their rights and freedom, and the forgery 
was received in the East and West with equal rever- 



AND ITS CAUSES. 



343 



ence, and is still enrolled among the decrees of the can- 
on law. By this vile forgery the Pope was made at 
once the successor of Peter and of Constantino, and, in 
addition to his spiritual power, was invested with the 
purple and the prerogatives of the Caesars. This base 
forgery, proved to be so by papal writers, is the found- 
ation of the temporal power of the Pope. And while 
popes themselves smile at the credulity which sanc- 
tioned it, they yet permit a false and obsolete title to 
sanctify their reign. '' By the same fortune which has 
attended the Decretals and the Sibylline oracles, the 
edifice has subsisted after the foundations have been 
removed." 

At this juncture, the way to universal dominion was 
wide open to the Pope. The deepest ignorance per- 
vaded the masses of the people. Deluded by legends, 
and false miracles, and vile impostures, they were 
grossly superstitious. With few exceptions, the world 
was governed by weak and contending princes, who 
fell an easy prey to the wiles of cunning ecclesiastics. 
Western Europe was parceled out among archbishops 
and bishops, who, in palaces, equipage, and power, 
were the rivals of princes. These had their parishes, 
and parishes their priests, whose influence was every 
where felt among the people. Thus the power of the 
Pope was every where felt, and became, for obvious 
reasons, the controlling power. The old Jewish cus- 
tom of anointing kings was revived, and, validly to 
rule, they must be instituted by the Pope. Hildebrand 
arose and gained the vacant chair of St. Peter. The 
opposition hitherto made against papal usurpation 
yielded before his amazing energy and iron will. Pow- 



344 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

ers hitherto only desired and sought he openly declared 
to be his by divine right. He asserted his power to 
be supreme in the Church and in the state ; and 
thenceforward, according to the canons, as says South- 
ey, " the Pope was as far above all kings as the sun is 
greater than the moon." He was king of kings and 
lord of lords, though he subscribed himself the servant 
of servants. The immediate and sole rule of the world 
belonged to him by natural, moral, and divine right, 
all authority depending upon him. As supreme king, 
he might impose taxes on all Christians, and it was de- 
clared, as a point necessary to salvation, that every hu- 
man being should be subject to him. That he might 
depose kings was averred to be so certain a doctrine, 
that it could only be denied by a madman, or through 
the instigation of the devil. The head of the Church 
was vice-Grod, and men were commanded to bow at 
his name, as at the name of Christ. The proudest 
sovereigns waited on him like menials, led his horse by 
the bridle, and held his stirrup when he alighted ; and 
there were embassadors who prostrated themselves be- 
fore him, saying, ''0 thou that takest away the sins 
of the world, have mercy on us." And here we reach 
the very culminating point of popery, when kings were 
its vassals — when crowns were its playthings — when 
kingdoms were its gifts — when its enemies were all 
subdued — when its word was law in the state and in 
the Church, from the Straits of G-ibraltar to the North 
Cape, and from the interior of Hungary to the western 
shores of Ireland. 

And has this power, of such monstrous usurpation 
and pretension, had no decline ? This question we can 



AND ITS CAUSES. 345 

best answer by a brief comparison of the present with 
the former state of some of those nations over which 
its authority was once supreme. We begin with good 
old England. 

We select the beginning of the thirteenth century, 
when John was king in England, and when Innocent 
III. was Pope. The question of investiture was not 
yet fully settled, and the see of Canterbury becoming 
vacant, the king and the Pope had each his candidate. 
The election devolved on a few weak monks, and In- 
nocent ordered them, on the pains and penalties of ex- 
communication, to elect his man. They remonstrated, 
but finally obeyed. And the Pope, sensible of his fla- 
grant usurpation, sought to soothe the inflamed spirit 
of the king by a present of four gold rings, whose value 
he desired to enhance by informing him of the myste- 
ries concealed in them. But the insulted monarch 
would not be so easily cajoled, and he opposed the elec- 
tion of Langton with great violence. The Pope exhort- 
ed him not to oppose G-od and the Church, and threat- 
ened the interdict, his great instrument of policy and 
vengeance during the Middle Ages. John persisted, 
and the awful interdict was declared. And suddenly 
the nation was deprived of all the exterior exercises of 
religion : the altars were deprived of their ornaments ; 
the crosses and statues of the saints were laid on the 
ground ; the priests covered them, lest the polluted air 
should injure them ; the bells ceased to ring, and were 
taken J&om the steeples and laid on the ground ; no 
rites were administered save baptism to infants and 
the wafer to the dying ; grave-yards were closed, and 
the dead were thrown into ditches, or buried in the 

P2 



346 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

open field ; the rites of marriage were performed only 
in grave-yards ; meat was prohibited ; the people were 
forbidden to shave, or to salute each other in the street. 
The execution of the interdict was so ordered as in the 
highest degree to strike the senses, and to operate with 
force on a superstitious people. Such was the awe 
with which this interdict filled the nation, that it seem- 
ed to the people as if the sun, moon, and stars had 
withdrawn a great portion of their light, and as if the 
very air was stagnating around them ! 

But King John braved the interdict, and retaliated 
upon the bishops and priests. And next came thun- 
dering from the Vatican the sentence of excommuni- 
cation. Then, then the monarch began to feel the 
misery of his state. No civil or military officer could 
serve under an excommunicated king, and he was left 
without support. But yet he struggled on. Next 
came the bull absolving his subjects from their obedi- 
ence, and excommunicating all that should hold any 
commerce with him in public or private. Although 
this filled his cup of sorrow, yet he resolved to struggle 
on, but finally yielded on the threat of deposition, and 
passed a charter, in which he resigned England and 
Ireland to God, Saint Peter, and the Pope. 

Comparing England then with England now, when, 
for a comparatively harmless exercise of authority, the 
Pope is burned in effigy, and is every where denounced 
as a contemptible and doting tyrant, and when its no- 
ble prime minister scoffingly scouts his impertinent 
interference, we ask, Is there no decline in popery? 
The empire which John gave to Innocent has been 
rescued from his successors, and is the open and no- 



AND ITS CAUSES. 347 

blest antagonist of the Vatican in the earth. Although 
in her established Church there is an admixture of the 
popish with the Protestant element, yet England is 
profoundly and piously Protestant. 

We now turn to France, beautiful, chivalric, and 
versatile, and select the period when Raymond was 
Earl of Toulouse. A dispute arose between him and 
the Pope out of the persecutions instituted by Rome 
against the Albigenses. He was refractory, and was 
excommunicated. The legate of the Pope succeeded 
in raising an army against him, through the fear of 
which, and the desertion of his own people, he was led 
to purchase absolution on the most humiliating condi- 
tions. He delivered up his castles, divested himself 
of his sovereignty, and suffered himself to be taken to 
the church of St. Grilles with bare back and a rope 
about his neck, and submitted to be scourged around 
the altar ! 

And what must be our conclusion, comparing France 
then and now, as to the power of popery ? Between 
that time and this, other thunders of excommunication 
have rolled over the Alps and have fallen upon this 
kingdom. "Within our own day one was fulminated 
against Napoleon, but its sounds died away in the air, 
and the Corsican sent his holiness to prison for his im- 
pertinence. And now, while nominally papal, it is 
really infidel, and Yoltaire and Sue more than divide 
the empire with Pio Nono. And it is not love for the 
Pope, nor veneration for popery, but a dread of Austrian 
encroachments, that has induced Republican soldiers 
to unsheathe their swords for the protection of the ty- 
rant of the Vatican. And again we ask, Is there no 
decline in popery ? 



348 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

Shall we next advert to G-ermany, the cradle of so 
much that is glorious in the history of man ? We se- 
lect the period when Henry was emperor and Grregory 
VII. was pope. Henry refused to surrender the an- 
cient right of investiture, and he was insolently order- 
ed to Rome to answer for his crimes. He returned 
insult for insult ; and, in a fit of vindictive phrensy, 
Hildebrand thundered his anathemas at the head of 
the prince, excommunicated him, deposed him from 
the throne of his ancestors, and dissolved the oath of 
allegiance of his subjects. He was, in consequence, 
deserted by his princes and people ; and, advised by 
his friends, he went to Rome to sue for mercy. He 
crossed the Alps amid the rigors of winter, and reached 
Canusium, where the sanctimonious pontiff resided 
with Matilda, the most tender and loving of all the 
daughters of the Church. The emperor was admitted 
without his guards into an outer court of the castle, 
where he stood for three successive days in the open 
air, with bare feet, and head uncovered, and with only 
a wretched piece of woolen cloth thrown around him 
to cover his nakedness. He was admitted on the fourth 
day into the presence of his holiness, who, with great 
reluctance, gave him absolution. 

Here we have in picture before us the supremacy 
which popery once wielded in Grermany; but how is 
it now ? Grreat events have occurred in Germany 
since. There Luther found and read the Bible. The 
art of printing was there discovered. The claims and 
doctrines of popery have there been discussed by great 
and earnest minds. There the battles of the Reforma- 
tion were fought, and the Thirty Years' War whitened 



AND ITS CAUSES. 349 

and fattened all its fields with the bones and blood of 
the slain ; and from these wars G-ermany came forth 
free and independent ; and at the present hour (save 
dotard Austria, whose recent Hungarian barbarity- 
should cast it beyond the pale of civilized nations) Grer- 
rnany is Protestant. "When Celestine had completed 
the ceremony of coronating the son of Barbarossa, in 
Saint Peter's, as Emperor of Grermany, he raised his 
foot and kicked off the crown which he had placed on 
his head, to show that he had the power of taking 
away as well as of conferring imperial dignity. Such 
an indignity in our day would induce even priest-rid- 
den, benighted Austria to send down her butcher Hay- 
nau to hang up Pio Nono as a sacrifice to her ven- 
geance. Nor would all Italy furnish a brewer to beard 
him for so doing. And again we ask. Is there no de- 
cline in popery ? 

Shall we next advert to Ireland, greenest isle of the 
ocean, where a double despotism, political and relig- 
ious, pressing upon its people for centuries, has been 
unable to cool the ardor of their hearts or to quench 
the brightness of their intellect ? It remained in the 
quiet and peaceful enjoyment of its religion, although 
often convulsed by internal discord, after its conversion 
to Christianity, until the reign of Henry II. of England. 
Adrian, an Englishman, was then Pope ; and, to gain 
political ends, he gave Ireland over into the hands of 
Henry, and annexed it, by public decree, to England. 
This decree was subsequently ratified by Pope Alex- 
ander, on two conditions : first, that Henry should 
" convert the bestial men over to the faith ;" and, sec- 
ond, that he should pay the tax of a penny for each 



350 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

hearth in the kingdom to the Holy See, and collect it 
from the people. This was the '' Peter's Pence," so 
called from the fact that it was collected on the festi- 
val of Saint Peter. Here is the springhead of all Ire- 
land's woes. Henry, in obedience to the Pope's de- 
cree, invaded Ireland as his bloody missionary, bound 
her in papal chains, and laid her at the foot of the En- 
glish throne ; and there she has lain until this day, 
bleeding and groaning in her misery, and all through 
the arrogance, and perfidy, and policy of the Pope ! 

Her people fell soon an easy prey to the seductions 
of Rome. Ignorant and superstitious, they were led 
easily to adopt a faith which in its rites bore so near a 
resemblance to those of their ancient Druidism. When 
Henry YIII. sought to introduce his reformation into 
Ireland, he was vigorously opposed by the clergy and 
the people, who insisted that " the holy island" belong- 
ed only to the Pope ; and the Yatican thundered its 
anathemas against all who should obey their sovereign, 
or who should fail to defend the supremacy of the Pope 
in things temporal as well as spiritual. And, subse- 
quently, encouraged by Charles and his popish queen, 
and their superior priests, that awful massacre of the 
Protestants was perpetrated by the papists, the narra- 
tive of which, even at this remote period, can not be 
read without a chill of horror. 

And what is the state even of Ireland now ? To be 
sure, its masses are the adherents of popery ; and that 
the pope and his priests should permit those masses, 
for nearly ten centuries, to remain in " bestial" igno- 
rance, the victims of the most gross deceptions, forms 
an argument against the system which all can see and 



AND ITS CAUSES. 351 

feel. But the mind of Ireland is Protestant. Its in- 
dustry, its commercial enterprise, its literature, is Prot- 
estant. The people are refusing any longer to be driv- 
en as sheep before the priests. Protestantism, long 
neglectful of its mission to that people, has entered 
upon its work. Its benign influence has already reach- 
ed even the wilds of Conemara. - The pope is alarm- 
ed, and he has sent his rescript against the Queen's 
College. The bishops are alarmed, and hence their 
recent synod at Thurles. Feeling that Ireland needs, 
at this crisis, a stronger guardian saint than is he un- 
der whose patronage it has reposed for ages, the sages 
of Thurles have absolutely deposed good old Saint Pat- 
rick, and have elected the Virgin Mary in his place. 
And again we ask. Is there no decline in popery ? 

But we will pass over the other nations of Europe, 
as to which statements similar to these could be made, 
briefly to consider the state of Italy itself. There, for 
twelve centuries, popery has been in power. There is 
the fabled chair of Saint Peter ; there is the centre of 
unity ; there is the person and court of the pope ; there 
the people have been cloyed and stupefied for ages 
with priestly processions and splendid masses — with 
feasts and fasts — with holy days and carnivals ; there 
the Muses have been bribed to lend their aid to priest- 
ly devices ; and Sculpture and Painting have lavished 
their magic power to give such life, and beauty, and 
brilliancy to the creations of superstition, as to ravish 
and carry captive the senses. And while the Italian 
neck has often felt the galling of the papal yoke, and 
the Italian people often manifested that it was difficult 
to bear it, yet, of all the countries upon the earth, 



352 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

there popery has been the most securely intrenched. 
It has had the moulding of the mind and the con- 
science of the people, and of every institution of the 
country, and without let or hinderance. Surely here, 
if any where, we should find the evidences of strong 
life, and the pulsations of a strong and living heart. 
But what are the facts in the case ? Take away the 
priests and their dependents, and there is not a city in 
Europe where the Pope and his minions are more sin- 
cerely contemned. But a few brief months ago, un- 
der the pretense of retiring for devotion, he withdrew 
from his friends, changed his garments for those of a 
servant, and, after putting a lady into the carriage, as- 
cended to the box of the coachman, and thus fled from 
Rome to Graeta. And why? His papal subjects 
would have reformation in the state and in the Church. 
And did they invite back the father of the faithful? 
Far otherwise. Feeling like singing a Te Deum for 
their blessed deliverance, they organized a free govern- 
ment ; and that government was only yielded, and the 
Pope was only permitted to return, at the mouth of 
French cannon and at the point of the bayonet of a 
French soldiery. And Pius IX. and his cardinals are 
only protected from expulsion, and perhaps from death, 
by the jealousy of other . nations, who, fearing the in- 
fluence of a Roman republic on the surrounding king- 
doms, and knowing that the balance of power in Eu- 
rope would be greatly changed if any of the great 
powers should gain possession of the Peninsula, have 
wickedly resolved to compel the old Romans to sub- 
mit to the government of the triple crown. If, at this 
hour, the Italian people could freely express themselves. 



AND ITS CAUSES. 353 

we fearlessly assert that the majority of them would 
triumphantly declare themselves against popery. They 
have even done it as it is. And why not? What 
have they ever received from it but degradation? 
When the traveler in search of the fields and scenes 
rendered classic by the muse of history finds a man 
and a mule yoked together in the same harness, and 
driven by the same goad, then he knows for a certainty 
that he has entered the States of the Church ! And 
what can popery or its priests expect but indignant re- 
jection at the hands of a noble people that they have 
so deeply degraded ? 

If additional proof is needed of the decline of this 
spiritual power, we would point to the present state of 
papal countries. Spain and Portugal are claimed as 
papal countries, but to what extent are they so ? There 
is an external submission to the claims of popery, but 
the masses of the people are nearer a savage than a 
civilized state, and are at least as much pagan as 
Christian. The same may be said of the states of 
South America, and of every state within the bounds 
of nominal Christendom from which the Protestant el- 
ement has been excluded. The picture of one is the 
picture of all. There is no Bible among the people ; 
no instruction on the Sabbath ; no preaching of the 
G-ospel ; no schools for the lower classes ; no keeping 
holy of the seventh day. The mumbling of masses, 
the parading of the Host, the ringing of convent bells, 
and the flitting about of lazy and vicious monks and 
friars, multitudes of whom have fled, like Joab, to the 
altar from the pursuit of justice, and who, under a 
cowl and cassock, are twofold more the children of sin 



354 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

than they were before — these, these are the only means 
of instruction, in the things of Grod, enjoyed by the 
people ; and the upper third of the entire population 
think no more of going to the confessional or to a mass- 
house than you or I think of repeating the absurd 
'' Litany of our Lady of Loretto," so piously recom- 
mended to the faithful by our friend of Saint Patrick's. 
And the piety of the priesthood in these countries is 
about on a par with that of the sanguinary pope who, 
when he ordered some of his refractory bishops and 
subjects to the torture, walked bareheaded, reading 
his missal, within hearing of their dying groans. In 
no portions of the earth is popery so low, so declining, 
so utterly destitute of vitality as in those countries 
where the people know no other form of religion. 
There it is as dry, fruitless, and withered as is a forest 
through which the winds of twenty winters, unsepar- 
ated by a solitary spring or summer, have whistled ; 
or, to change the figure, in those countries it is like 
unto a bladder once blown to its full extension, but 
now dry, beyond the power of holy oil or water to soft- 
en, and rent beyond the power of priests to patch up, 
and utterly incapable of a new inflation. Ignorance 
and superstition are its only supports, and it will as 
certainly fall before the advances of light and truth as 
did Dagon before the ark of God. 

But is there no life at all in the system ? There is. 
"Where, then, is it to be found? Not within the an- 
cient metropolis of the world, whose fallen columns, 
decaying arches, and tottering walls are but the types 
of popery throughout the earth ; not in stupid Austria, 
nor in mocking France, nor in debauched Spain, nor 



AND ITS CAUSES. 355 

in the feeble, conflicting, and semi-savage states of our 
southern hemisphere, but amid Protestant institutions, 
where an open Bible, a free press, freedom of discus- 
sion, an intelligent Christian ministry, and the general 
prevalence of knowledge, compel its priests to culti- 
vate external decency, to preach to the people, and to 
defend it as best they can. Hence, while in purely 
papal countries the superstition has reached the years 
of its dotage, and is laboring under the multiplied in- 
firmities that attend the close of a dissolute life, there 
is a reviving of its ancient spirit of adventure and bold 
imposture in Britain and the United States. The 
starving papal Irish are pouring into England, and, to 
keep them together, a cardinal and a new batch of 
bishops was deemed necessary. The papal nations of 
Europe are pouring in their surplus population on us 
in torrents, and, to prevent their uniting with our peo- 
ple as do the rivers with the ocean, bishops and arch- 
bishops are multiplied. But all will not do. True, a 
few dreamy Puseyites, who sigh after the return of a 
theocracy and of a visible unity, and who judge of re- 
ligion as many silly people do of men, by the clothes 
which they wear and their pretensions, have gone to 
Rome. Some of them, like Father Ignatius, should 
have gone to an asylum. And this is made the occa- 
sion of feeble and fallacious harangues on the decline 
of Protestantism. But all this is simply the whistling 
of timid boys when passing a grave-yard of a dark 
night. The object is to cheer up their drooping spirits, 
and to prevent, by raising false issues, the enlighten- 
ing, elevating, converting, and assimilating influence 
of Protestantism on the masses of the faithful. "Where 



356 THE DECLINE OFPOPERY 

one returns to Rome, there are one hundred that de- 
sert it. 

Such being the evidence of the dechne of popery in 
all the earth, we have hut a few words to say as to its 
causes. 

One of these causes is the circulation of the Bible. 
Somehow or other it has become an article of the 
popular faith, that the will of Grod, as revealed in the 
Bible, is the foundation of all true religion. "What the 
Bible teaches is true ; what it does not teach is a doc- 
trine of men, and obedience to it is will worship. And 
to teach contrary to the Bible is to rob Grod of his au- 
thority as legislator, and usually ends in robbing man 
of the privileges secured to him by the true religion. 
Hence the importance of the circulation of the Bible, 
that all may know whether they are taught the true 
religion, or whether they are imposed upon by old 
wives' fables. 

How strange and strong the impressions made upon 
the mind of an intelligent papist by a careful reading 
of the Bible ! As he turns from page to page, he is 
amazed that he should have been so duped as to re- 
ceive as the religion of G-od the teachings of popery. 
With his Bible open in his hand, he goes to a priest 
with questions such as these : Your reverence, does the 
Church teach the celibacy of the clergy, and anathe- 
matize all who do not receive it as a true and whole- 
some doctrine ? Certainly, is the reply. Tell me, 
then, what does this mean; '^Peter's wife's mother 
was laid, and sick of a fever ?" And what do these 
passages mean: ^'A bishop must be the husband of 
one wife, having his children in subjection ;" " let the 



AND ITS CAUSES. 357 

deacons be the husbands of one wife ?" If Pope Peter 
had a wife, why should not Pio Nono ? If bishops and 
deacons are commanded to have wives, why would it 
be wrong in your reverence to have one ? And what 
can he say ? 

Again he asks. Does the Church teach the doctrine 
of confession of the people to the priest ? Certainly^ 
is the reply. Tell me, then, what does this passage 
mean : " Confess your faults one to another ?" I have 
often confessed to you ; come, kneel down and confess 
to me. And what can he say ? 

And these we give as specimens of the way in which 
the reading of the Bible leads men every where to the 
rejection of all that is peculiar to popery, and leads 
them over to the broad and elevated platform of Prot- 
estantism. And do you wonder that popery is declin- 
ing in all the earth, when you remember that the Bi- 
ble is now translated into upward of two hundred lan- 
guages and dialects, and is circulated among all peo- 
ple ? And do you wonder at the opposition of popish 
priests to the Bible ? They know that it exposes their 
fraud ; and while they smile at the circulation of the 
works of Yoltaire, and Rousseau, and Tom Paine, they 
follow the Bible colporteur, and make a bonfire of the 
books which he scatters. An illustration of all this 
we find in the recent popular movement at Rome. 
When the Pope fled the city, the Bible entered it, and 
was circulated by thousands ; when the Pope returned, 
the Bible had to flee, and those who put it into circu- 
lation were punished with a deeper severity than were 
those who manned the walls and nobly faced the al- 
lied forces collected by the father of the faithful for the 



358 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

murder of his children. But all efforts to arrest its 
circulation are in vain ; as well might they attempt to 
arrest the sun in the career of its glorious way. And 
as surely as light is the death of darkness, will the 
circulation of the Bible be the death of popery. 

Another of these causes is the increasing intelligence 
of the race. Ignorance is the soil where the principles 
of popery attain their most magnificent growth. This 
may be seen by a glance at the moral map of the 
world. The more intense the ignorance, the more in- 
tense the popery ; and intense popery will soon pro- 
duce intense ignorance. For illustration, we point you 
to Spain, Portugal, Italy, Mexico, and to poor, unhappy 
Ireland. And before the increasing intelligence of the 
masses, popery retires as do the mists of the morning 
before the rising sun. We are willing to make great 
allowance for the influence of early training ; but no 
man must ask us to believe that any intelligent mind 
can believe in the absurdities of popery. Hence, 
when relieved, in this country, from the external press- 
ure of priestly intolerance, the better informed even of 
the Irish peasantry smile when told that the Pope can 
not err; that his power is supreme in the Church; 
that the efficacy of a sacrament depends upon the in- 
tention of the administrator ; that the priest can grant 
an absolute and judicial absolution from sin ; that he 
can convert a little flour wafer into G-od, and then eat 
him ; and that all but papists are excluded from heav- 
en. They are aware that their Church teaches some- 
thing upon these subjects that they do not fully un- 
derstand, and which Protestants reject ; but the more 
correct your version of them, the more convinced are 



AND ITS CAUSES. 359 

they that you are making fun of their rehgion ; and 
when convinced that such, in truth, are the doctrines 
of their Church, they desert it ; and it is in this way 
that thousands in this and other lands are now desert- 
ing it. "When the primer, and the spelUng-book, and 
the Bible have found their way into all the earth, the 
days of popery will be at an end ; and hence the op- 
position of the Vatican to all schemes for educating 
the masses. 

Another of these causes we find in the fooleries of 
popery. Let it not be for a moment believed that the 
ridiculous and absurd legends of the Middle Ages, 
forged by monks for the edification of the faithful, are 
repudiated by the papists of our day. They are re- 
produced and circulated in papal countries for the ben- 
efit of devout minds. Have we not, in our own day, 
legends as absurd as the miracles wrought at the tomb 
of Becket — as the fountains opened by Augustin — as 
Saint Patrick's turning old Rius into a blooming youth, 
and setting ice on fire — as Saint Mocha restoring to 
life some stags after the flesh was picked from their 
bones, and sending them into the woods — as Saint Groar 
hanging his cape on a sunbeam — as Saint Fechin 
causing the sun to stand stOl — as the crows making 
an apology to Saint Cuthbert for carrying away some 
of the thatch of his house, and bringing him some pork 
as a peace-offering — as Saint Berach causing willow- 
trees to bear apples — as Saint Guana passing over a 
lake on a flag-stone ? Do any of these lying wonders 
surpass in absurdity the yearly liquefaction of the 
blood of Saint Januarius at Naples, or the holy robe 
of Treves, or the winking Madonna of Rimini ? When 



360 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

men commence thinking, they can not and they will 
not stand these absurdities. Their indignation will he 
as high as the impositions to which they were subject- 
ed were base ; and they will cast off with scorn their 
priestly deceivers, and they will tread beneath their 
feet the dogmas and the emblems of a superstition as 
gross as any that Grod has ever permitted to live. See 
the effect, already of the holy robe of Treves ! It has 
led, and is yet leading, men by thousands to desert 
popery. And such, also, must be the effect of the hoax 
at Rimini. Burning indignation is very apt to succeed 
the discovery of gross deception. Hence we wonder 
not when, on the flight of the Pope, the populace went 
into the Roman churches, and brought out their con- 
fessionals, and crosses, and crucifixes, and piled them 
up in the street for a bonfire. And papal priests 
throughout the earth should read in this event the 
foreshadowing of their doom. As long as they can 
keep the nations in intellectual childhood, they may 
amuse them with bawbles, and cause them to under- 
stand, speak, and act as children ; but so certainly as 
they rise to manhood, they will put away childish 
things. 

Another of these causes is the despotism of popery. 
The Earl of Shaftesbury was among the most philo- 
sophic and far-seeing statesmen of his day. He often 
gave utterance to the following pregnant sentence : 
'' Popery and slavery, like two sisters, go hand in hand. 
Sometimes the one goes first, and sometimes the other ; 
but when popery enters, slavery will soon follow." 
And the truth of this is abundantly illustrated in the 
history of the nations. The people it makes slaves to 



AND ITS CAUSES. 361 

the king, and the king a slave to the Church. It has 
sometimes taken sides with the people against their 
rulers, but then it was to subdue the rulers to its yoke ; 
and when it has taken sides with rulers against the 
people, it was because the people commenced panting 
after the possession of their natural rights. But, wheth- 
er it sided with princes or with people, it has ever had 
but one object in view, the putting of its yoke on the 
neck of both. 

By the very nature of its constitution and claims, 
popery is adverse to free institutions, and, in proof, we 
appeal to the history of the world and to its history. 
Where on earth has it ever been ascendant without 
throwing its folds around civil institutions, and crush- 
ing them, as the fabled serpents from the ocean crush- 
ed the sons of Laocoon? And who has ever resisted 
its encroachments without sharing the fate of the priest 
of Apollo ? Question the nations of the earth as to 
this matter. Ask Portugal, the country of Dionysius, 
of John II., and of De G-ama, what has made her what 
she is, and she will point to her swarming priests, to 
her mendicant orders, to their grasping avarice and 
minute exactions — to that all-pervading papal inflti- 
ence which crushes every thing on which it falls. Ask 
Spain what has extinguished her spirit of chivalry, de- 
graded her mind, paralyzed her power, and reduced 
her from her once proud eminence to a state so low 
that there is none to do her reverence, and the Ebro 
will cry to the G-uadalquivir, and the Straits of Gribral- 
tar to the Bay of Biscay, popery. Ask bleeding Ire- 
land what has converted its noble people into beggars, 
and sown its fertile fields with salt, and keeps her 



362 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

swarming millions in Egyptian darkness, and it will 
return the same answer, popery. Why are Mexico 
and South America, with the glorious example of our 
republic before them, what they are ? Every time the 
Genius of Liberty seized his trumpet to call up the peo- 
ple to the assertion of their rights, popery has wrung it 
from his grasp. The malign influence of popery upon 
civil institutions is its direct and necessary influence. 
"When it acts out its heart, it has but one way of act- 
ing, and that is in the direct line of despotism. 

That this is so, is plain from the events but of yes- 
terday, and from others that are now transpiring. 
When the Romans asked a constitutional government 
from the Pope, he refused it. When he fled, they es- 
tablished a republic ; and the old tyrant invited the al- 
lied armies of France, Austria, and Spain to abolish 
the republic, to quell the spirit of freedom, and to re- 
store him to his throne and his triple crown. And for 
conduct far less base than that of Pio Nono, the Con- 
gress of 1776 declared the King of England to be a 
" prince whose character was marked by every act 
which may define a tyrant ;" and while the papists of 
our own land were singing their hosannas to democra- 
cy, and were raising money to assist the Irish in their 
resistance to British rule, yet, from the archbishop 
down to the most ignorant thumber of beads before the 
pictures of the saints, they denounced the citizens of 
Rome for declaring themselves free, for dethroning the 
most arbitrary despot in Europe, and, as if ashamed to 
go to Grod, they overwhelmed the Virgin with entreat- 
ies that she would restore him to his despotic chair. 
And not only so, but, by reviving the ^^ Peter pence," 



AND ITS CAUSES. 363 

they sent from free America tens of thousands of dol- 
lars to put bullets into French and Austrian cannon 
for the purpose of battering down the newly-erected 
citadel of Roman liberty ! 

And when the sympathy of all free hearts was flow- 
ing toward Hungary in its recent but fruitless struggle 
for independence, and when the free earth rang with 
aspirations for the success of Kossuth and his noble 
compatriots, that free rising and its noble leader were 
denounced at Rome as bitterly as at Vienna, and by 
papists in New York in language as atrocious as the 
most hopeless Legitimist could utter. The freedom of 
Hungary would not subserve the purposes of popery, 
and it must abide in its chains. Where this system 
can not rule, it will ruin. Power is its religion ; des- 
potism is its creed ; and when you attempt to remon- 
strate with it, it will answer you as did the confessor 
of the Queen of Spain a nobleman who set himself in 
opposition to him. '' Sir," said the haughty and blas- 
phemous prelate to the old Castilian, " sir, you should 
fear and respect the man who every day has your G-od 
in his hand and your queen at his feet." 

This characteristic of popery is rapidly rising to the 
view of all men ; and as it rises into light, all free 
hearts are rejecting the system.. On this ground alone, 
within a few years, it has been rejected by the city of 
Rome — ^by multitudes in Italy and Grermany — by mill- 
ions in France ; and just in the proportion that the 
spirit of freedom pervades the earth, will popery be re- 
jected where it exists, and its extension be opposed 
where it exists not. 

The last of the causes which we shall name is the 



364 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

rapidly increasing and extending influence of Protest- 
antism. It is true that, since the Reformation, Prot- 
estantism has not done for the nations all that, under 
other circumstances, it would have done. It has not 
converted France. But why ? Let the murders of 
St. Bartholomew's Day, and the awful butcheries which 
succeeded the revocation of the Edict of Nantes an- 
swer. It has not converted Italy. But why ? Let 
the history of the Reformation in Italy answer. It 
has not converted Spain. But why ? Let the history 
of the Inquisition answer. It has not converted the 
masses of Ireland. But why ? Let the awful Irish 
massacre of 1641, instigated by the priests, and the 
bitter prejudices they have kept alive since among the 
people, answer. Popery, in its treatment of Protest- 
ants, has become the synonym of inhumanity. 

Nor has Protestantism done what it might. In some 
countries it has been encumbered with state connec- 
tions ; in others it has declined from the true faith ; in 
others it has lost its first love ; in all, it has been too 
neglectful of its great mission, which is to Christianize 
and civilize the world. But a brighter day has risen 
upon it. 

Yet Protestantism reckons as its followers nearly one 
half the number that popery claims as its adherents ; 
and, although numerically one half less, in all the great 
elements of character and progress it is vastly its su- 
perior. In wealth, in enterprise, in rational liberty, in 
literature, in commerce, in all the elements of political 
and moral power, Protestant are to papal nations as the 
sun and moon in the heavens are to the fixed stars. 
That you may see this, blot from the map of Europe 



AND ITS CAUSES. 365 

all that it owes to Protestantism, and what is left for 
the people to desire ? Blot from those nations all that 
they owe to popery, and it would be like Moses lifting 
up his wonder-working rod heavenward, and rolling 
back the darkness that enshrouded Egypt. If this 
does not picture our idea, stop for a month or a year all 
that Protestantism is doing to civilize, enlighten, and 
bless the earth, and the world is moved and astounded 
from its centre to its circumference ; even old Austria, 
the Sleepy Hollow of the world, would spring to her 
feet and ask. What is the matter ? Stop for the same 
time all that popery is doing for the same ends, and it 
would be no more missed than is the light of the lost 
pleiad from the sky. 

What means that wakening attention in all civilized 
states to the education and elevation of the people ? 
What means that restless anxiety observable even in 
the most petrified of papal states to obtain natural 
rights, which causes hoary error to shake its head with 
holy horror ? It shows the advancing influence of Prot- 
estantism. 

What means that ubiquitous influence of the press, 
which discusses all questions, whether pertaining to 
Church or state, before the people, and which brings 
out the verdict of the people as freely upon prince, pope, 
or prelate, as upon the most obscure of the people ? It 
shows the advancing: influence of Protestantism. 

What mean these railways, and telegraphs, and 
ocean steamers, that are converting seas into straits, 
and that are bringing Canton and London, Liverpool 
and New York, within speaking distance, and that are 
bringing nations the most distant into acquaintance 



366 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

and brotherhood ? They show the advancing influence 
of Protestantism. 

AVhat mean the vast enterprise, skill, and industry 
of Britain — ^her extended commerce— her empire, upon 
which the sun never sets — her laws, extended over 
millions of India — her protection of the right wherever 
her flag floats ? What mean the opening of China — 
the granting of liberty of conscience by Turkey»^the 
payment of a Protestant ministry from the treasury of 
France ? They show the advancing influence of Prot- 
estantism. 

What mean those white spots on the moral map of 
the world, scattered along the western coast of Africa, 
and all over British India and Burmah, and rapidly 
multiplying on the sea-coast of China, and almost as 
numerous on the Pacific as are its islands ? They 
mark the advances of Protestantism. 

What mean that expulsion of archbishops from Sar- 
dinia — that noble address of the Roman people to the 
Pope, in which they tell him that his claim of sover- 
eignty for the chair of St. Peter reminded them '^ of the 
fable where Jove gives a log to be king of the frogs" — 
the rapid reformation progressing in western Ireland — 
the yet growing influence of the Ronge movement in 
Grermany— the collecting of large churches in some of 
our own cities of abjuring papists — the growing in- 
quiry among papists in all lands as to religious things 
and truths ? All and each show the advancing influ- 
ence of Protestantism. 

What mean the rising cities of these free states — 
those national grants of land iot the education of the 
people — those rapidly-multiplying churches for the wor- 



AND ITS CAUSES. 367 

ship of Grod in every direction — those missionaries that 
track the Indian through the wilderness, and that fol- 
low the tide of emigration in every direction — the 
bringing under our influence, in a few months, the pa- 
pal states of Texas, New Mexico, and California — the 
building of cities and churches by the waves of the Pa- 
cific, and where, until recently, nothing in the way of 
religion dare be lisped save popish mummeries ? They 
mark the advances of Protestantism. 

And, now that the power to make thunder is gone, 
what mean those grumblings and mutterings of the 
Vatican, coming in the way of rescripts and pastoral 
letters against Irish colleges, and Bible and tract soci- 
eties, and the promiscuous education of papist and 
Protestant children ? "What mean, among us, the put- 
ting up of papal schools — the preaching of priests and 
bishops — the importation of masa-mongers with long 
coats and no brains — the forming of clubs to sustain 
lectures whose objects are to vilify the G-ospel, and to 
prop up a declining superstition ? They distinctly 
mark the advancing influence of Protestantism. 

And what mean the suppression of Protestant wor- 
ship in Rome — ^the expulsion of the Bible from its walls 
— the perfect exclusion of all Protestant influences 
from the papal states of both the Old and New World ? 
If Protestantism is of feeble influence, and declining at 
that, why so anxious to head it off* every where ? If 
false in theory, and feeble in power, and poor in re- 
sources, and endlessly divided withal, it is nov/here to 
be feared. "We call, then, upon Pope, prelates, and 
priests, no longer to act as cowards in the presence of 
such a feeble foe. It can do but little, nor can it do 



368 THE DECLINE OF POPERY 

that little long. Give it free access, then, to Rome. 
Tell Spain, and Portugal, and Italy, and Austria, and 
the South American states, to open their gates, to raise 
the portcullis, to admit this declining system to enter, 
and without let or hinderance to try its strength. Tell 
them as freely to admit Protestantism as Protestant 
states admit popery. Will they do it ? If not, then 
we nail to the counter as a priestly falsehood all that 
they utter as to ''the decline of Protestantism ;" and 
the man who, a few weeks ago, made this the theme 
of a lecture, whose feebleness is only equaled by its 
falsehood, and who has since harangued in London on 
the liberality of Protestantism, is probably at this very 
hour counseling the cardinals, instead of opening these 
nations, to put new locks on all their doors. 

But this man has gone for his pallium. Do you 
wish to know what a pallium is ? At first it was a 
woolen mantle sent by the Roman emperors to the 
higher ecclesiastics as a badge of dignity ; now it is a 
woolen band, three or four fingers broad, worn outside 
the vestments. It is made by the nuns of the convent 
of St. Agnes, and from the wool of consecrated sheep. 
For this bawble, the bestowal of which by the Pope is 
necessary to the right exercise of the functions of an 
archbishop, the receiver must pay his holiness a very 
large sum. Nor is it bestowed save on the giving of 
the most solemn pledges of canonical obedience to the 
Holy See. When our friend returns, wearing this fil- 
let made from the wool of holy sheep, the faithful ex- 
pect that Protestantism will pale in the presence of this 
silly gewgaw from the convent of St. Agnes ! This is 
the ridiculous side of the affair. But it has a serious 



AND ITS CAUSES. 369 

one. This thing of bishops going to Rome for vest- 
ments and investiture convulsed kingdoms in the Mid- 
dle Ages. And why ? Because of their swearing al- 
legiance to Rome, and renouncing their own sover- 
eigns. This is the view of the matter which now so 
intensely agitates England. Let a serious rupture be- 
tween Britain and Rome now take place, and Wise- 
man will treat Victoria as Becket treated Henry II. ; 
the cardinal would be the commander-in-chief of the 
Pope in the British Isles. Should a serious rupture oc- 
cur between us and Rome, the man with the fillet 
made from the wool of holy sheep would be here the 
feudal baron and liege lord of the Pope, to maintain the 
claims of the most contemptible despotism that earth 
knows, in the very heart of free America, and under 
the shadow of the flag which secures to him that lib- 
erty of conscience which popery in power nowhere re- 
ciprocates. 

But we must close. Popery has rapidly and is rap- 
idly declining. There was a time when, if it was not 
respected, it was feared. But it is not so now. The 
force of its fanaticism is spent and unfelt. While all 
other institutions are rising with the progress of soci- 
ety, this continues petrified. It is like a vessel bound 
by a heavy anchor and a short iron cable to the bottom 
of the stream, while the tide of knowledge and freedom 
are rising around it. Its spiritual tariff — ^its restric- 
tions on the commerce of thought— its taxes on the 
bread of life — its efforts to bring seats in heaven into 
the priestly market — its mimic immolations of the Son 
of G-od — ^its sacrifice of the people for the sake of the 
priest — its nameless exactions and endless tyrannies, 



870 THE DECLINE OF POPERY, ETC. 

are not much longer to be "borne. The Lord will con- 
sume it with the breath of his mouth, and will destroy 
it with the brightness of his rising. 

" Though well perfumed and elegantly dressed, 
Like an unburied carcass tricked with flowers, 
'Tis but a garnished nuisance." 

From every tower of Zion the watchmen should lift 
up their voices together, and cry to the people that 
they have nothing to fear. The world is not to be ed- 
ucated back again to the intelligence of the Dark Ages. 
While popery may be compared to a decrepit, nervous, 
and wrinkled old inan, whose hearing is obtuse, and 
whose memory is short, and who, heedless and forget- 
ful of the events passing around him, is always prat- 
tling about the past. Protestantism is strong, and act- 
ive, and zealous, and enterprising, and attractive, and 
looking to the future. The mind of the world is with 
it. Reason is with it. The literature of the world is 
with it. The Bible is with it. God is with it. The 
entire current of civilization is with it. And all these 
are against popery. The combat may be protracted, 
but the victory is certain. Nor, in the conflict, will 
the cause of popery be much aided by the support, nor 
will the cause of Protestantism be any weakened by 
the assaults, of those whose chief aim and grand ambi- 
tion it is to wear a fillet made from the wool of holy 
sheep. 

6 8 3 1 

THE END. 












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